Toshihiko Izutsu God And Man In The Quran

Contents

Review by Fazlur Rahman vii

Preface xiii

1. Semantics and the Qur’an 1

I. Semantics of the Qur’an 1

© Keio University 1964 II- Integration of Individual Concepts 4

ISBN 978 983 9154 38 2 in. ‘Basic’ Meaning and ‘Relational Meanings’ 11

2. Qur’anic Key-Terms in History 32

First published 1964 I- Synchronic and Diachronic Semantics 32

Keio University, Minatoku, IL The Qur’an and the Post-Qur’anic Systems 42

Tokyo, Japan

3. The Basic Structure of Qur’anic Weltanschauung 74

This new edition 2002 I- Preliminary Remark 74

First reprint 2004 II- God and Man 76

Second reprint 2008 HI- The Muslim Community 79

IV. The Unseen and the Visible 83

Published by V. The Present World and the Hereafter 86

Islamic Book Trust VI. Eschatological Concepts 91

607 Mutiara Majestic

Jalan Othman 4. Allah 100

46000 Petaling Jaya I. The Word Allah, Its ‘Basic’ and ‘Relational’ Meanings 100

Malaysia II. The Concept of Allah in Arabian Paganism 106

Website: wwwAbtbooks.com HI- The Jews and the Christians 111

IV. The Judeo-Christian Concept of Allah in the

Islamic Book Trust is affiliated to The Other Press. Hands of the Pagan Arabs 115

V. Allah of the HanTfs 117

Cover design 5. Ontological Relation Between God and Man 127

Habibur Rahman Jalaluddin I. The Concept of Creation 127

II. Human Destiny 130

6. Communicative Relation Between God and Man:

Non-linguistic Communication 142

Printed by I. The ‘Signs’ of God 142

Academe Art & Printing Services II. Divine Guidance 150

Kuala Lumpur III. The Worship as a Means of Communication 158

v

VI

7. Communicative Relation Between God and Man:

Linguistic Communication 163

I. God’s Speech (Kalam Allah) 163

II. The Original Meaning of the Word Wahy 169

III. The Semantical Structure of Revelation 178

IV. Revelation in Arabic 199

V. Prayer (Al-Du ‘a) 208

8. Jahiliyyah and Islam 216

I. Islam and the Concept of Humble Submission 216

II. From Hilm to Islam 235

III. The Conception of Religion (Dm) as ‘Obedience’ 239

9. Ethical Relation Between God and Man 254

I. God of Mercy 254

II. God of Wrath 258

III. Wa ‘d and Wa ‘Id 265

References

Index

271

275

Review by Fazlur Rahman*

This book, which constitutes volume V of the series Studies in the
Humanities and Social Relations of Keio University is written by
Professor Toshihiko Izutsu and has emerged out of his lectures at
McGill University, Montreal in the spring of 1962 and 1963.
Actually, 1 participated in a seminar given by Dr. Izutsu at McGill
during the 1960-61 session where he had tried out some of the ideas
contained in this book. These seem to have matured over the years
and this constitutes not only a welcome addition to the existing
literature on Islam but introduces a new approach to the under-
standing of Islam — particularly by non-Muslims — the linguistic
approach. The Arabic mistakes that appear in the book (some of
which must be sheer misprints which are also frequent in the book)
must not lead the reader to accuse the writer of inadequacy in Arabic
which he knows and speaks fluently. Nor is this Dr. Izutsu’s first
work on the Qur’an, he has already given us a work on the ethical
concepts of the Holy Book.

At the outset, Dr. Izutsu gives us his idea of the science of
linguistics or semantics through which he wishes to understand the
Qur’an, “Semantics as I understand it is an analytic study of the key-
terms of a language with a view to arriving eventually at a conceptual

* Islamic Similes, June 1966, Vol. V No. 2, Islamic Research Institute, Rawalpindi.

VII

Vlll

God and Man in the Qur’an

Review by Fazlur Rahman

IX

grasp of the Weltanschauung or world-view of the people who use
that language ...”

A semantical study of the Qur’an would, therefore, be an analy-
tical study of the key-terms of the Qur’an. In the succeeding pages,
Dr. Izutsu makes it abundantly clear that by a study of the key-terms
is not merely meant just a mechanical analysis of these terms or
concepts in isolation or as static units but even more importantly
includes their living, contextual import, as they are used in the
Qur’an. Thus, although the term Allah was used by some pre-Islamic
Arabs not only to mean a deity among deities but even a supreme
deity in hierarchy of deities, yet the Qur’an wrought a most funda-
mental change in the Weltanschauung of the Arabs by precisely
changing the contextual use of this term, by charging it with a new
import — and that by eliminating all deities and bringing the concept
of Allah to the centre of the circle of being. In order, therefore, to
understand and even to find out the key-concepts themselves, one
must know first of all the entire basic structure of the Qur’anic world
of ideas. A portrayal of this basic structure or total Gestalt is then
attempted in chapter 3 for, “The proper position of each individual
conceptual field, whether large or small, will be determined in a
definite way only in terms of the multiple relations all the major
fields bear to each other within the total Gestalt".

With this we also approach the basic dilemma of Dr. Izutsu’s
semantic methodology. The key-terms, which, when grasped, were
supposed to yield an understanding of the system as a whole (for. Dr.
Izutsu assures us that the “key-terms determine the system”), cannot
themselves be understood and even fixed without a prior knowledge
of that system. This is what is called a vicious circle. There is
nothing basically vicious with the approach (which is, indeed, a
common-sense approach) that the best way of understanding a system
is to study that system (in the present case the Qur’anic Weltans-
chauung) as a whole and to pay special attention to its important
concepts. I, therefore, must suspect that viciousness is the result of
the desire to make semantics a science and to make grandiose claims
on behalf of it.

Fiom an Islamic point of view, however, this is only a formal
difficulty; wc shall now briefly sec what constitutes for Dr. Izutsu

the substantive structure of this Qur’anic teaching. This teaching our
author discovers in the first place in a fourfold relationship between
God and man. viz., (i) God is the creator of man; (ii) He comm-
unicates His Will to man through Revelation; (iii) there subsists a
Lord-servant relationship between God and man and (iv) the concept
of God as the God of goodness and mercy (for those who are thank-
ful to Him) and the God of wrath (for those who reject Him). The
believers in this fourfold relationship between Allah and man
constitute a Community ( Ummah Muslimah) by themselves and
believe in the Last Day, Paradise and Hell. Dr. Izutsu’s description
of the historical evolution of these concepts in pre-Islamic Arabia up
to the appearance of Islam is quite rich and valuable.

The main question is whether the basic structure of the Qur’anic
Weltanschauung, as described by Dr. Izutsu, really does adequately
tally with the Qur’anic teaching. One cannot help thinking that the
author has carefully and quite subjectively tailored this “basic struc-
ture” to fit what he himself has decided to be the “key-concepts” of
the Qur’an. He may have thereby semi-consciously discovered in the
Qur’an the counterparts of his personal religious Weltanschauung.
For, how else to explain the fact that in this total picture the moral
element is totally wanting? Dr. Izutsu approvingly quotes Prof. Sir
Hamilton Gibb to the effect that the main difference between the
portrayals of Heaven and Hell by Umayyah Ibn AbT al-Salt and by
the Qur’an is that in the Qur’an they are “linked up with the essential
moral core of the teaching”. But apparently Dr. Izutsu does not
understand the implications of Gibb’s statement because he himself
entirely ignores the moral field as though it forms no part of the
“basic structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung". Indeed, while
speaking of the “ethical relation” between God and man, Dr. Izutsu
links up the ideas of salvation and damnation with purely personal
faith.

One may raise the general question whether an ethical
relationship, properly speaking, can be established at all between God
and man. To God one can have only a worshipful attitude and not an
ethical or moral attitude which he can have only towards other men.
strictly speaking. One cannot be good to God but only to men. To a
Weltanschauung like Dr, Izutsu’s, therefore, for which man-God
relationships ore imperturbable by and indifferent to mun-mun

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God and Man in the Qur’an

relationships, and can be established per se, the Qur’anic teaching is
directly opposed — far from being adequately described by that
Weltanschauung. That the Qur’an’s chief aim is to create a moral-
social order, is actually proved if one historically studies the process
of the revelation of the Qur’an — the actual challenges which the
Prophet flung initially to the Makkan society. These challenges were
not only to the pantheon of the Makkans at the Ka‘bah but also to
their socio-economic structure. This shows the superiority of the
historical approach to the approach of the pure semanticist.

Only a historical approach can also do justice to the evolution
of concepts, particularly the concept Allah. Dr. Izutsu, on the basis
of certain verses of the Qur’an, thinks that the view of One God
(Allah) generally prevalent in pre-Islamic Arabia on the eve of Islam,
was “surprisingly close in nature to the Islamic one”. There is,
however, strong evidence to believe that this “surprisingly” close
concept of Allah was developed by the Makkans under the impact of
the Qur’anic criticism and, on the basis of this newly evolved
concept, they wanted to effect a compromise with the Prophet. The
Qur’an itself bears testimony to this.

One big trouble with Dr. Izutsu’s conception of the Qur’anic
teaching on God-man relationship is that he does not keep the
Makkan milieu in view and for him there is no difference between a
Bedouin and a Makkan of the Prophet’s time. The Bedouin was
haughty, proud, unrestrained and boastful beyond any proper sense
of reserve; he was over-conscious of his individual self-respect — he
possessed the quality of jahl (opposed to hilm). The function of
Islam, therefore, consisted, above all — according to him — by humb-
ling this haughtiness and unlimited sense of pride. This was done
effectively by projecting an idea of God, which is, above all,
forbidding and fear-inspiring. The truth, however, is that the
immediate addressees of the Qur’an were the Makkans — more parti-
cularly, their wealthy commercial classes. These people recognized
no restraint on their amassing of wealth, did not recognize any
obligations to their less fortunate fellow-men; regarded themselves
“self-sufficient ( mustaghni )” i.e., law unto themselves. It is to them
that the Qur’an first threw its challenge and required them to
recognize limitations on their “natural rights”. It was until they had
rejected the challenge that the Qur’an backed up its demand by a

Review by Fazlur Rahman xi

theology with the doctrines of Heaven and Hell.

To make these criticisms, fundamental as they are, is not to deny
the intrinsic value of this book which, according to this reviewer, lies
in bringing out both the contrast and the continuity between the
Qur’anic teaching and the post-Qur’anic developments in Islam at the
hands of Muslims. On such vital issues as the definition of Islam and
Iman (chapter 2, section II) and the freedom of man vis-a-vis God
(chapter 6), how Muslim speculative theology later deviated from the
pre-speculative mood of the Qur’an has been incisively brought out.
One wishes the author had shown more elaborately and decisively
that the Qur’an, far from being a work of speculative thought
interested in system building, was as a living monument of moral and
spiritual guidance, interested in keeping alive all the moral tensions
which are requisite for good and fruitful life. It is because the Qur’an
is interested in action that it is not shy of putting side by side the
contradictory and polar terms of the moral tension. But probably the
preoccupation of Dr. Izutsu to build out a system himself from the
Qur’an did not allow him to do so.

Dr. Izutsu’s treatment of the question of wahy or verbal commu-
nication from God in chapter 7 is good and comprehensive, although
it is somewhat uncritical in the acceptance of traditional material on
the subject and also naive in its interpretation. We are told that the
verbal communication can occur only between two beings of the
same order of existenee — which is, of course correct. But then Dr.
Izutsu tries to rationalise as to how the Prophet could have actually
heard Words of Revelation and he tells us that the Prophet in his
moments of Revelation, was transformed into a higher being “against
his nature”. He does not see that this in fact explains nothing for the
question still would remain. How is it possible for a being of one
order to get altogether transformed — even against his own
nature — from time to time, into a being of a different order and how,
after the moments of Revelation have passed and the Prophet returns
to his normal self, would he keep his identity? On the whole Dr.
Izutsu’s use of the terms “nature” and “supernatural” in this context
clearly smacks of the Christian doctrines about Jesus. The author’s
differentiation of the Biblical concept of Prophecy and the Qur’anic
concept is again very good. I would like to add that the Prophecy of
the biblical ProphctN was not always natural but was often an art

God and Man in the Qur’an

xii

cultivated in the Jewish temples.

In the end, one would like to underline the fact that this book is
from the pen of the first serious Asian non-Muslim scholar and a
Japanese. As such we welcome Dr. Izutsu’s work and hope that it
will be the harbinger of a growing tradition of Islamic scholarship in
the Far East.

Fazlur Rahman

Preface

The present work is based on a course of lectures which I gave at the
Institute of Islamic Studies in McGill University, Montreal, in the
spring of 1962 and 1963 at the request of Dr. Wilfred Cantwell
Smith, then Director of the Institute. I wish at the outset to express
my cordial thanks to him for giving me the opportunity and encou-
ragement to put into coherent form the results of many years of work
on both the problems of semantical methodology and those of the
Qur’anic Weltanschauung viewed from the standpoint of semantics.

The lectures are not reproduced here as originally delivered. I
expanded them considerably and arranged the matter in a different
order. In so doing I was guided by a hope that, although so many
competent scholars had already studied the Qur’an from many
different angles, I might still be able to contribute something new
to a better understanding of the Qur’anic message to its own age and
to us.

It remains to express my gratitude to all those who helped in
various ways to make the production of this book possible: first, to
the Rockefeller Foundation, the Humanities Division, under whose
kind and cordial auspices I could undertake an extended two years’
study tour of the Muslim world (1959-1961); secondly, to all those
who attended my seminars at the Institute in Canada and contributed
toward making me clarify my thought by their lively questions and
valuable comments; and last but not least, to Professor Nobuhiro

xiii

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God and Man in the Qur’an

Matsumoto, to whose guidance and unfailing sympathy this work
owes much more than I can express.

My colleague Mr. Takao Suzuki, read through the manuscript
and made a number of valuable suggestions. He helped me also with
the proof-reading.

It is also my pleasant duty to acknowledge my great obligation
to Dr. Shohei Takamura, President of Keio University for the subsidy
generously granted by the University (Fukuzawa Endowment for the
Advancement of Learning and Study) toward the publication of this
book.

T. Izutsu
Tokyo, September 1963.

CHAPTER 1

Semantics and the Qur’an

I. Semantics of the Qur’an

This book which is actually entitled God and Man in the Qur'an
might as well have been entitled in a more general way “Semantics
of the Qur’an”. I would have done so readily if it were not for the
fact that the main part of the present study is almost exclusively
concerned with the problem of the personal relation between God and
man in the Qur’anic world-view and is centered round this specific
topic. The alternative title would have the advantage of showing from
the very beginning the two particular points of emphasis which
characterize this study as a whole: semantics on the one hand and the
Qur’an on the other.

In fact, both are equally important for the particular purpose of
the present study; if we should neglect either of the two, the whole
work would immediately lose its significance. For what is of vital
importance here is neither the one nor the other considered
separately, but this very combination itself. The combination suggests
that we are going to approach a particular aspect of the Qur’an from
a no less particular point of view. And, we must remember, the
Qur’an is capable of being approached from a number of different
points of view such as theological, philosophical, sociological,
grammatical, exegetical, etc., and the Qur’an presents a number of
divergent but equally important aspects. So it is quite essential that
wc should try to have at the very outset the clearest possible idea as
to the relevance of semantic methodology to Qur’anic studies, and to

1

2

God and Man in the Qur’an

Semantics and the Qur’an

3

see whether there is any real advantage in approaching the Scripture
of Islam from this particular angle.

The title “Semantics of the Qur’an” would suggest, to begin
with, that the work will consist primarily in our applying the method
of semantical or conceptual analysis to material furnished by the
Qur’anic vocabulary. Again this would suggest that of the two points
of emphasis to which reference has just been made, semantics
represents the methodological aspect of our work, and the Qur’an its
material side. Both are, as I have said, of equal importance. But
practically, that is, for the purposes of the present study, the former
aspect is probably more important than the latter, for this book is
addressed first and foremost to those readers who have already a
good general knowledge of Islam and are, therefore, ready to get
vitally interested from the beginning in the conceptual problems
raised by this kind of study regarding the Qur’an itself, while nothing
has been assumed on their part in regard to specialist knowledge of
semantics and its methodology. So I am going to put in the first part
of this book less emphasis on the material side than on the
methodological aspect of our problem in order to bring home to
Islamists the interest and value of having a new outlook on old
problems.

Unfortunately, what is called semantics today is so bewilderingly
complicated. It is extremely difficult, if not absolutely impossible, for
an outsider even to get a general idea of what it is like. 1 This is
largely due to the fact that ‘semantics’, as its very etymology would
suggest, is a science concerned with the phenomenon of meaning in
the widest sense of the word, so wide, indeed, that almost anything
that may be considered to have any meaning at all is fully entitled to
constitute an object of semantics. And, in fact, ‘meaning’ in this
sense is furnishing today with important problems thinkers and
scholars working in most diverse fields of specialized study such as
linguistics proper, sociology, anthropology, psychology, neurology,
physiology, biology, analytic philosophy, symbolic logic, mathematics
and, more recently, electronic engineering, and still others. So much
so that ‘semantics as the study of Meaning, cannot but be a new type
of philosophy based on an entirely new conception of being and
existence and extending, over many different and widely divergent
branches of traditional science, which, however, arc as yet far from

having achieved the ideal of a perfect integration.

Under these conditions it is but natural also that there should be
in what is called semantics ah all too obvious lack of harmony and
uniformity. In other words, we have as yet no neatly organized
uniform science of semantics, all we have in our hands is a number
of different theories of Meaning. With a measure of exaggeration we
might describe the situation by saying that everybody who speaks of
semantics tends — rightly, we should think — to consider himself
entitled to define and understand the word as he likes. This being the
case, my first task in writing this book will have to consist in making
an attempt to clarify my own conception of semantics, and to state
as exactly as possible what I think should be the major concern of a
semanticist, his ultimate aim and, in particular,' his basic attitude
along with an explanation of the methodological principles that derive
from all this. This I will try to do in the following, not in abstracto,
but in connection with some of the most concrete and profound
problems raised by the language of the Qur’an.

As will be made abundantly clear as we proceed, semantics as
I understand it is an analytic study of the key-terms of a language
with a view to arriving eventually at a conceptual grasp of the
Weltanschauung or world-view of the people who use that language
as a tool not only of speaking and thinking, but, more important still,
of conceptualizing and interpreting the world that surrounds them.
Semantics, thus understood, is a kind of weltanschauungslehre , a
study of the nature and structure of the world-view of a nation at this
or that significant period of its history, conducted by means of a
methodological analysis of the major cultural concepts the nation has
produced for itself and crystallized into the key-words of its
language.

It will be easy to see now that the word Qur’an in our phrase
“Semantics of the Qur’an” should be understood only in the sense of
the Qur’anic Weltanschauung, or Qur’anic world-view, i.e., the
Qur’anic vision of the universe. The semantics of the Qur’an would
deal mainly with the problem of how, in the view of this Scripture,
the world of Being is structured, what are the major constituents of
the world, and how they are related to each other. It would, in this
sense, be a kind of ontology — a concrete, living and dynamic
ontology, and not the kind of static systematic ontology constituted
by n philosopher ut an abstract level of metaphysical thinking. It

4

God and Man in the Qur’an

Semantics and the Qur’an

5

would form an ontology at the concrete level of being and existence
as reflected in the verses of the Qur’an. It will be our purpose to
bring out of the Qur’an this type of living dynamic ontology by
examining analytically and methodologically the major concepts, that
is, those concepts that seem to have played a decisive role in the
formation of the Qur’anic vision of the universe. 2

II. Integration of Individual Concepts

At first sight the task would appear to be quite a simple one. All we
have to do, one might think, will be to pick up out of the whole
vocabulary of the Qur’an all the important words standing for
important concepts like Allah, Islam, nabiy (prophet), Man (belief),
kafir (infidel) etc., et., and examine what they mean in the Qur’anic
context. The matter, however, is not in reality so simple, for these
words or concepts are not simply there in the Qur’an, each standing
in isolation from others, but they are closely interdependent and
derive their concrete meanings precisely from the entire system of
relations. In other words, they form among themselves various
groups, large and small, which, again, are connected with each other
in various ways, so that they constitute ultimately an organized
totality, an extremely complex and complicated network of
conceptual associations. And what is really important for our
particular purpose is this kind of conceptual system which is at work
in the Qur’an rather than individual concepts as such taken separately
and considered in themselves apart from the general structure, or
Gestalt, as we might call it, into which they have been integrated. In
analysing the individual key concepts that are found in the Qur’an we
should never lose sight of the multiple relations which each of them
bears to others in the whole system.

The supreme importance of such a conceptual network or total
Gestalt underlying the world-view of the Qur’an will be brought
home by examining even cursorily a few examples taken almost at
random. We may begin by observing that none of the key-terms that
play a decisive role in the formation of the Qur’anic world-view
including the very name of God Allah, was in any way a new
coinage. Almost all of them had been in use in some form or other
in pre-Islamic times. When the Islamic Revelation began to use these

words, it was the whole system, the general context in which they
were used that struck the Makkan polytheists as something quite
strange, unfamiliar and, therefore, unacceptable, and not the
individual words and concepts themselves.

The words themselves were in current use in the 7 th century, if
not within the narrow confines of the mercantile society of Makkah,
at least in some religious circle or other in Arabia; only, they
belonged in different conceptual systems. Islam brought them
together, combined them all into an entirely new hitherto unknown
conceptual network. And it was chiefly — I do not say exclusively,
for, undoubtedly there were a number of other factors at work — this
transposition of concepts, and the fundamental displacement and
rearrangement of moral and religious values which ensued from it,
that so radically evolutionized the Arab conception of the world and
human existence. From the viewpoint of a semanticist who is
interested in the history of ideas, it is this, and no other thing, that
gave the Qur’anic vision of the universe so markedly characteristic
a coloring.

Speaking in more general terms, it is common knowledge that
words, when they are taken out of their traditionally fixed combi-
nations and put into an entirely different and new context, tend to be
profoundly affected by that very transposition. This is known as the
impact of context on word-meanings. Sometimes the impact results
only in subtle shifts of emphasis and slight changes of nuance and
emotive evocation. But more often there occur drastic changes in the
meaning structure of the words. And this holds true even when the
word in question in the new system still keeps hold on the same basic
meaning which it had in the old system.

Now to give some examples from the Qur’an. The name of
Allah, for instance, was not at all unknown to the pre-Islamic Arabs.
This is evidenced by the fact that the name appears not only in pre-
Islamic poetry and compound personal names but also in old
inscriptions. At least some people or some tribes in Arabia believed
in a god called Allah and even seem to have gone to the extent ol
acknowledging Him as the creator of heaven and earth, as is easy to
sec from some of the Qur’anic verses. 3 Among people of this type
even the highest position seems to have been assigned to Allah in the
hierarchy of polytheism, namely in the capacity of the “Lord ol the
House", the Ka’bah at Makkah, the other gods being regarded us

6

God and Man in the Qur’an

Semantics and the Qur ’an

7

so many mediators between this supreme God and human beings.
This latter conception of the divine hierarchy most clearly reflected
in the Qur’an. In Surah al-Zumar, we hear some polytheists saying:

We only serve them (i.e. worship other gods) that they may
bring us near to Allah.

Al-Zumar, 39:4 [3] 4

The underlying idea is that of shafa'ah (intercession) which
plays an exceedingly important role in the history of religious thought
among the Arabs and Muslims from the old pre-Islamic times down
to the Middle Ages when it comes to occupy the attention of the
Islamic theologians.

In much the same sense, in Surah al-Ahqaf, the gods besides
Allah are regarded as qurban, lit. means of approaching, that is,
propitiation and intercession. There, in reference to those ancient
cities that went to destruction as a result of their stubborn refusal to
believe in Allah, it is asked with biting sarcasm:

Why, then, did they not help those people, the gods that they had
taken to themselves besides Allah as propitiators?

Al-Ahqaf, 46:27 [28]

These and many other verses show clearly that the existence of
a god called Allah and even his highest position among the divinities
was known and acknowledged in Jdhiliyyah, but He was, after all,
but one of the gods. This age-old system of religious values was
gravely endangered when it was proclaimed by the Prophet of Islam
that this supreme God was not only supreme in the relative sense of
the highest in the hierarchy but absolutely supreme, and also unique,
i.e., the one and only God in existence, degrading thereby all other
gods to the position of batil (false) as opposed to haqq (real), in
other words, mere names without any reality, mere products of fancy
and imagination. If the Arabs were to accept this new teaching, the
general situation would have to suffer a complete^changc and reper-
cussions would not only make themselves felt in the relatively

confined domain of religious ideas but practically all spheres of life,
both social and individual, would have to be thereby, affected. No
wonder formidable opposition to this movement under Muhammad,
began to manifest itself immediately and grew around him.

It is to be noticed that this did not mean a mere change in the
Arab conception of the nature of Allah alone; it meant also a drastic
and radical change of the whole conceptual system about which we
talked in the preceding section. The new Islamic conception of the
supreme God affected profoundly the whole structure of the vision of
the universe. For the first time in the history of the Arabs, a
monotheistic and theocentric system was established, a system whose
center was occupied by the one and only God as the sole source of
all human actions, and, indeed, of all forms of being and existence.
All the existent things and values were thereby subjected to a
complete rearrangement and a new allotment. The elements of the
universe came, without one single exception, to be uprooted from
their old soil, and transplanted into a new field; each one of them
was assigned a new place, and new relationships were established
between them. Concepts that had formerly been quite foreign to each
other were now brought into close connections; contrariwise, concepts
that had been closely related to each other in the old system came to
be separated in the new one.

In the realm of the supernatural beings, the acknowledgment of
the position of Allah as the sole Lord of the whole universe deprived,
as noted above all the other so-called gods ( alihah ) of all reality.
They were now “mere names”, not corresponding to any real entities
existing outside of language. In the terminology of modem semantics,
we should say that in this conception the term ilah (pi. alihah), when
applied to anything other than Allah Himself is nothing but a word
having connotation but no denotation.

In Surah Yusuf, we read:

U" iS jUf-

. Nil

That which you worship apart from Him, is nothing but names
you have named, yourselves and your fathers. God has sent
down no authority ? touching them.

Yusuf 12:40

(iOD and Man in the Qur’an

Semantics and the Qur ’an

9

8

Besides the so-called gods, there were also in Jahiliyyah a few
other types of supernatural beings that were worshipped, feared and
venerated in varying degrees according to places and tribes: angels,
demons and jinn. These were all taken up and incorporated in the
new system of Islamic world-conception, but with some fundamental
modifications with regard to their respective position and function in
the general scheme.

Of the important category of jinn we shall have much to talk
later in connection with the problem of Revelation and poetic
inspiration. 6 Here let us consider, as a typical example, the case of
the angel-worship in ancient Arabia. According to informations
obtainable from the HadFth, there seems to have been widely
practised among the Arabs in Jahiliyyah the angel-worship. The
Qur’an itself tells us that there were many who believed and
professed that the angels were the daughters of Allah. The word
malak or malak meaning ‘angel’ was well-known not only among the
town dwellers who might have been easily influenced in this respect
by Judaism and the Persian religious conception, but also among the
pure Bedouins. The famous pre-Islamic warrior poet ‘Antarah b.
Shaddad, for example, has this verse: 7

(Ask any experienced warrior in our tribe;) he will tell you that on the
edge of my sword there lives the angel of death, always present, never
disappearing.

In the Arab conception, an angel was an invisible spiritual being
somewhat in the nature of a god or superior jinni, worthy to be
venerated and even worshipped, but with no definite place in the
hierarchy of the supernatural beings. Sometimes an angel was
venerated as an intercessor or mediator between a higher god and
men, but often he was himself an object of cult and worship. To this
conception Islam brought a profound change of far-reaching
consequence for the Weltanschauung of the Arabs. With the estab-
lishment of an entirely new theocentric system, a definite place was
assigned to the angels in the hierarchy of beings. Moreover, the
angels themselves were classified into several categories in
accordance with their functions and thus angelic hierarchy was
formed within the universal hierarchy of beingfSotnc names came to

assume a great importance being associated with some especially
important missions to fulfil in the execution of the grand design of
Divine Providence; such is, for example, the angel Gabriel (JibrTl or
JabrTl in Arabic) as the heavenly messenger who is charged with the
task of transmitting the words of Revelation to the Prophet on the
earth.

More important still, the angels ceased to be themselves an
object of adoration and worship; now they were but simple creatures
of God, differing in no way from human beings in this respect, and
they were naturally so made exactly as men were, to worship God,
to be humble and obedient servants of God. In Surah 4, we are told:

The Messiah will never disdain to be a servant of God, nor will
those angels who are allowed to enjoy Divine favor. Whoever
disdains to serve Him as a slave, being too proud (to do so), He
will assemble them to Him, all together.

An-Nisa ’, 4:170-171 [172]

Thus we see the angels, without ceasing to be celestial beings
belonging to higher ontological order than mankind, degraded to the
position of mere servants or slaves of Allah in much the same way
as ordinary human beings. And if this is the case with the angels how
much more should this be the case with jinn. These have also been
originally and essentially created to serve and worship Allah; there
can be no difference at all in this important respect between jinn and
human beings. In Surah 51, Allah Himself declares:

I created jinn and mankind only that they might serve Me.

Al-Dhariyat, 51:56

And the verse is well-known 8 in which it is solemnly declared
that those the jinn who disobey Allah and refuse to serve Him will
be thrown into hell on the Day of Judgment together with humar
kuffdr (infidels) without any discrimination.

It is to be noticed that all these arc but a small part of the

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11

universal rearrangement of concepts and redistribution of values
brought about by the teaching of Islam, which radically altered the
nature of the Arab conception of the world. We must observe that the
words have not changed in their original basic meanings; what has
actually changed is the general plan, the general system, and in this
new system each one of them has found a new position. The word
malak , for example, still retains the old meaning of ‘angel’, and yet
in this new system, it is no longer what it has been; it has undergone
a subtle but very profound inner semantic transformation as a result
of its having been put in a new place in a new system.

The impact of a new conceptual framework on the meaning
structure of individual concepts will come out much more clearly if
we turn to words that stand for moral, ethical or religious values. In
the nature of the case, the Qur’an abounds in excellent examples in
this field. We may mention as the most typical one the word taqwa .
As we shall see later , 9 the basic semantic core of a living being of the
word taqwa was in Jdhiliyyah “self-defensive attitude of a living
being, animal or man, against some destructive force coming from
outside”. This word comes into the Islamic system of concepts
carrying with it this very basic meaning. But there, under the
overwhelming influence of the whole system, and particularly by the
fact of its having been now put into a specific semantic field
composed of a group of concepts having to do with ‘belief which is
peculiar to the Islamic monotheism, it comes to acquire an extremely
important religious meaning: taqwa , passing through the intermediate
stage of “the pious fear of Divine chastisement on the Day of
Judgment”, ends by meaning personal ‘piety’ pure and simple.

A great many examples may be easily adduced to illustrate the
same process of semantic transformation from different angles. But
it is not necessary to do so at this stage, for, after all, that precisely
will be the most important subject, of this whole study, and will,
therefore, continue to occupy us all through the book. So instead of
going any further in this direction, I should like to stop here for a
while and add some general observations on what I have called the
whole conceptual system or network from a somewhat more technical
point of view.

III. ‘Basic’ Meaning and ‘Relational’ Meaning

By the brief and summary explanation I have just given, the
significance of a whole conceptual framework, or total Gestalt , has
been, I hope, made apparent in affecting the meaning values of
individual words that exist in totality. Concepts, we have seen, do not
stand alone and in isolation but are always highly organized into a
system or systems.

At this stage I should like to introduce a technical distinction
between what I would call ‘basic’ meaning and ‘relational’ meaning
as one of the major methodological concepts of semantics in order to
facilitate our subsequent analytic work.

Now if we take up the Qur’an and examine from our standpoint
the key-terms that we meet with therein, we notice immediately two
things, one quite obvious and, apparently, even too banal and
commonplace to be pointed out, and another which may not be so
obvious at the first glance. The obvious side of the matter is that each
individual word, taken separately, has its own basic meaning or
conceptual content on which it will keep its hold even if we take the
word out of its Qur’anic context. The word kitdb (book), for
example, means basically the same thing whether it is found in the
Qur’an or outside of the Qur’an. This word, as long as it is actually
felt by the speech community to be one word, keeps its fundamental
meaning — in this case, a very general and non-specified meaning of
‘book’ — wherever it is found, whether it happens to be used as a key-
term in a given system of concepts or more generally outside of that
particular system. This constant semantic element which remains
attached to the word wherever it goes and however it is used, we
may call the ‘basic’ meaning of the word.

This, however, does not exhaust the meaning of the word. And
here begins the second aspect of word-meaning to which reference
has just been made. In the Qur’anic context, the word kitdb assumes
an unusual importance as the sign of a very particular religious
concept surrounded by a halo of sanctity. This comes from the fact
that in this context the word stands in a very close relation to the
concept of Divine Revelation, or rather various concepts having direct
reference to Revelation. This means that the simple word kitdb, with
its simple basic meaning ‘book’, once introduced into a particular
system and given a certain definite position in it, acquires a lot of

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semantics ana ine y/ur un

i J

new semantic elements arising out of this particular situation, and
also out of the various relations it is made to bear to other major
concepts of that system. And, as happens very often, the new
elements tend gravely to affect and even modify essentially the
original meaning structure of the word. Thus in this case, the word
kitab , as soon as it is introduced into the Islamic conceptual system,
is put into a close connection with such important Qur’anic words as
Allah , wahy (revelation), tanzll (sending down, of Divine words),
nabiy (Prophet), ahl (people; in the particular combination of ahl al-
kitdb — the people of the Scripture — meaning peoples who possess a
Book of Revelation like the Christians and the Jews, etc.).

A^the word kitab in an ordinary context showing the basic meaning of ‘book’ pure
and simple.

B — the same word kitab in the semantic field of Revelation peculiar to the Qur 'an.

Henceforward, the word in the characteristically Qur’anic context will
have to be understood in terms of all these related terms and this
association alone gives the word kitab very special semantic coloring,
that is, very complex and particular meaning structure which it would
never have acquired if it remained outside of this system. It is to be
noticed that this is also part of the meaning of the word kitab as long
as it is used in the Qur’anic context — an exceedingly important and
essential part of its meaning, indeed, far more important than the
‘basic’ meaning itself. This I would call in this book, the ‘relational’
meaning of the word to distinguish it from the latter.

Thus, while the ’basic’ meaning of a word is something inherent
in the word itself, which it carries with it Avhcrcver it goes, the
‘relational’ meaning is something connotativc that comes to be

attached and added to the former by the word’s having taken a
particular position in a particular field, standing in diverse relations
to all other important words in that system.

In view of the great methodological importance of this concept,
I should like to give here another simple example showing how a
‘relational’ meaning comes into being. The word I have in mind is
yawm whose ‘basic’ meaning is ‘day’.

Let us suppose that the big circle (Q) in the diagram represents the
whole Qur’anic vocabulary. This Q is, as we shall see in detail
presently, a large conceptual system consisting of a number of
smaller overlapping conceptual systems which we call in semantics
‘semantic fields’. Among them there is a ‘field’ which is of especial
importance in determining the nature of the Qur’anic world-view, a
field, that is, composed of words having direct reference to the
Resurrection and the Last Judgment, like qiyamah (resurrection),
ba ‘th (raising, the dead), din (Last Judgment), hisab (reckoning), etc.
This field or conceptual network constituted by these words we may
call the Eschatological field (E),

As is natural, an intense atmosphere of a very unusual nature
pervades the whole field and reigns over it. Right into this
atmosphere you pul the word yawm with its proper-neutral, wc might
say meaning of a ‘day’, which it has in normal situations; at once
you see a variety of conceptual associations formed around it, and the
concept of ‘day’ tinged with a marked eschatological coloring. In
short, ai yawm (the day) means in this particular field not an ordinary

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Semantics and the Qur’an

15

day, but the Last Day, i.e., the Day of Judgment. Exactly the same
explanation applies to the Qur’anic use of the word sa'ah 10 whose
basic meaning is ‘hour’. In order to be understood in the sense of the
‘Hour of Resurrection’, the word need not actually occur in special
combinations with other words that have more explicitly eschato-
logical associations; the word sa’ah by itself is quite sufficient to
convey all the necessary eschatological implications if only we know
that it is being used not in its basic meaning, but in a sense which is
peculiar to this semantic field.

It often happens that the modifying power of the whole system
works upon the word so strongly that the latter ends by almost losing
its original conceptual meaning. When this happens, then we have a
different word; in other words, we are witnessing the birth of a new
word. The outstanding example is the semantic transformation which
the verb kafara underwent in the Qur’an.

Kafara properly and basically means “to be ungrateful”, “to
show ingratitude” towards some good done or some favor shown by
some other person; it is just the opposite of shakara meaning “to be
thankful”. And this is the usual meaning of the verb kafara within the
larger context of the vocabulary of the Arabic language. This
meaning itself does not change in any way whether the verb be used
by the Muslims or by the non-Muslim Arabs; it is common to all the
Arabic speaking people. Moreover, this has been so all through the
ages from pre-Islamic times down even to our own days.

However, the word took quite a special course within the
narrower context of Islamic theology. At the Qur’anic stage of the
development of the Arabic language, the word was taken over from
the pre-Islamic vocabulary by Divine Revelation and put into an
extremely important semantic field composed of words having
reference to the central concept of ‘belief, namely, belief in God. A
direct and most intimate conceptual connection was thereby estab-
lished between this verb and the word Allah. That is to say, within
this narrowly confined semantic field — which we might call the
man- field, Tman being roughly equivalent in meaning to ‘belief, as
we shall see more full later — kafara was no longer the simple attitude
of ingratitude, but was ingratitude towards God, or more exactly,
towards God’s goodness and the favour shown by Him. And this is
the first stage in the very interesting semantic development of this
word in the Qur’anic context.

In order to understand the next stage we must remember the
very basic fact about Islam that, according to the religious teaching
of the Qur’an itself, one of the essential conditions, or rather, the
very first step in attaining to the true ‘belief or ‘faith’ ( iman ) is that
man should learn to understand the seemingly quite ordinary and
common natural phenomena which he observes around him not as
simple natural phenomena but as so many manifestations of Divine
goodness towards him — that is, in Qur’anic terminology, as so many
‘signs’ ( ayat ) of God — and be truly thankful to Him for them. The
Qur’an, never tires of insisting most emphatically and trying to bring
home to man how all the good things which he is enjoying in this
earthly life are in reality nothing but God’s gifts. Islam as a religion
is, in this respect, an exhortation to gratitude towards God. At the
same time it is an exhortation addressed to man to become deeply
conscious of his ultimate and essential dependence on God. In the
religious view of the Qur’an this consciousness on the part of man of
his absolute dependence on God is the very beginning of the true
faith and belief in God. This explains how the verb kafara — or its
nominal form kufr deviates little by little from the original meaning
of ‘ingratitude’ and comes nearer and nearer to the meaning of
‘disbelief or ‘unbelief as the flat negation of the concept of Tman.
In the Qur’anic verses that were revealed to Muhammad towards the
end of his lifetime, kafara was no longer the antonym of shakara (be
thankful) but rather the opposite of amana (to believe), and its
participal form kafir — this form, incidentally was destined to play a
part of paramount importance in the subsequent history of Islamic
thought, whether theological or political — came to mean simply an
‘infidel ’. 11 Correspondingly, the word shakara, on its part, comes
very near to the concept of Tman itself. In not a few places in the
Qur’an, shakara (to be thankful) to God is almost synonymous with
amana (to believe) in God, although, to be sure, the semantic
transformation in this case has not been as complete as in the case of
kafara.

In any case, here we see how word-meanings get affected by
their neighbors, by the impact, that is, of the whole system to which
they arc made to belong. A word signifying ‘thankfulness’ could
never have conceivably acquired a meaning coming near to ‘belief
and ‘faith’ except by having been put into a particular semantic field,
where all elements contributed towards letting it develop in that dire-

I(>

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semantics ana me yur an

ction. And in terms of our distinction between ‘basic’ meaning and
‘relational’ meaning, we might describe fairly adequately the situation
by saying that in the case of shakara a markedly characteristic
relational meaning developed around the basic semantic core of the
word in the Qur’an, which enabled the word to be used sometimes
almost synonymously with amana , while in the case of kafara “to be
ungrateful” the relational meaning became powerful and got the
upper hand of the basic meaning so much so that it eventually
produced a new word with the basic meaning of ‘disbelief.

It remains now to say a word about the real nature of what I
have called ‘basic’ meaning in distinction from the ‘relational’. It
must be kept in mind that the ‘basic’ meaning which, as I said, a
word carries with it everywhere and always as its conceptual core or
kernel, and which, therefore, does not change in whatever system the
word may be put, as long as it is felt by the community to be one
word — this ‘basic’ meaning is in reality but a methodological
concept, that is to say, a theoretic postulate which proves useful
whenever we want to analyze the meaning of a word scientifically,
which, however, we never find in this abstract form in the world of
reality. We only assume as a working hypothesis the existence of
some such thing in our semantical analysis of words because in most
cases the assumption facilitates our analytic procedure and makes our
understanding of word-meanings more systematic and scientifically
exact. To say the truth, words are all complex social and cultural
phenomena, and in the world of reality even a single word cannot be
found, whose concrete meaning is covered completely by what I call
‘basic’ meaning. All words without exception are more or less
markedly tinged with some special coloring coming from the peculiar
structure of the cultural milieu in which they actually exist.

IV. Vocabulary and Weltanschauung

The previous section was devoted to a consideration of a
methodological distinction between two different, although closely
related, sorts of word-meaning which we named provisionally ‘basic’
meaning and ‘relational’ meaning respectively. And we examined a
Pew examples from the Qur’an. Our real aim was not so much to
explain the distinction itself by concrete examples to show how

i /

semantical analysis of the ‘relational’ side of a word-meaning
requires a minute and careful investigation into the general cultural
situation of the age and the people in addition to a more specialist
linguistic knowledge of the word. For, after all, what we call the
‘relational’ meaning of a word is nothing other than a concrete
manifestation, or crystallization, of the spirit the culture, and a most
faithful reflection of the general tendency, psychology and otherwise,
of the people who use the word as part of their vocabulary.

This, I think, has also shown that semantical analysis is neither
a simple analysis of the formal structure of a word nor a study of the
original meaning attached to the word- form, /.e., etymology.
Etymology, even when we are fortunate enough to know it, can only
furnish us with a clue as to the ‘basic’ meaning of a word. And, we
must remember, etymology in many cases remains a simple guess-
work, and very often an insoluble mystery. Semantical analysis, in
our conception, is something that intends to go far beyond that. It
purports to be a cultural science, if we are to classify it. The analysis
of the basic relational elements of a key-term should be conducted in
such a way that, when we really succeed in doing it, the combination
of the two aspects of the meaning would bring to light one particular
aspect, one significant facet of culture as it was, or is, being
experienced consciously by those belonging to that culture. And at
the end, if we ever reach that final stage, all the analysis done must
help us reconstruct on an analytic level the whole structure of the
culture as it really lived — or lives, as the case may be — in the
conception of the people. This is what I would call the ‘semantic
Weltanschauung ’ of a culture.

It remains now to elucidate more in detail what kind of a thing
this ‘semantic Weltanschauung ’ is, how it is basically constituted, and
what grounds we can offer for maintaining that it forms philoso-
phically a dynamic ontology to which a passing reference has earlier
been made.

With this in view let us begin by repeating what we have already
remarked, namely, that the words in a language form a closely-knit
system. The main pattern of that system is determined by a certain
number of particularly important words. It is necessary to note here
that not all words in a vocabulary are of equal value in forming the
basic structure of the ontological conception underlying the voca-
bulary, however important they may appear from other points of

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Semantics and the Qur'an

19

view. The word 6 stone’ , for example, may be fairly important in the
daily life of the English-speaking people. But the word, it would
seem, does not play any decisive part in characterizing the world-
view of the present day English language. In the same way, the word
qirtds meaning ‘parchment’ which occurs in the Surah al-An‘am 12 is
indeed, a very interesting and remarkable word not only linguistically
but also from the standpoint of the cultural history of the Arabs, but
it does not contribute in any essential way towards characterizing the
nature of the fundamental Qur’anic vision of the universe. The word
sha ( ir (poet) is several degrees more important than this, particularly
in a negative sense, because the Qur’an is emphatic in pointing out
to the opponents that the Prophet Muhammad is “not a poet”. 13 And
yet, its importance, when compared with the word nabiy (prophet)
itself, is very small. Those words that play a really decisive role in
making up the basic conceptual structure of the Qur’anic world-view,
I would call the ‘key-terms’ of the Qur’an. Allah , Islam, Man
(faith), kafir (infidel), nabiy (prophet), rasul (apostle, of God) are
some of the outstanding examples. It will be the most important, but
also the most difficult part of a semanticist’s job, who would study
the Qur’an from this point of view, to isolate, before everything else,
the key-terms out of the bulk of Qur’anic vocabulary. For it will
determine all the subsequent analytic work he will be doing; this will
doubtless form the very basis of the whole edifice.

Almost unavoidably a certain amount of arbitrariness comes into
this choice of the key-terms, and this may gravely affect at least
some aspect of the whole picture. Just to give one example: the
Qur’an mentions more than ten times the Heavenly ‘Throne’, ' arsh
of Allah, 14 and we know that this concept occupies a very prominent
place in the discussions of later theologians of Islam and that it plays
also an exceedingly important role in Islamic mysticism as a symbol.
But whether the concept is so fundamentally important already at the
Qur’anic stage as to be fully entitled to be regarded as one of the
key-terms will certainly be a question open to discussion. And the
semanticist will have to be confronted with many similar cases in the
course of his analysis. This, however, does not offer a real problem,
for as regards, at least, the main body of key-terms there can possibly
be no essential disagreement. Nobody will question the choice of
words like Islam Man, kufr, nabiy , etc., not to speak of the word
Allah itself.

Now the key-terms constitute among themselves the general
pattern the vocabulary of which they are representative members.
And this they do by standing in diverse and multiple relations with
each other. As I said earlier they do not exist quite independently of
each other; they are connected with one another in a most intricate
way and in diverse directions. Let A, B, C, D, E, F and G be the
key-terms of a vocabulary. The word A with its own ‘basic’ meaning
is closely related with B, D and E , for example. The word 5, in its
turn, itself having its proper ‘basic’ meaning has an intimate
relationship with E, F, G besides A , and the word G with C and B ,
etc., etc. So that all, taken as a whole, represent themselves to our
eyes as a highly organized system of interdependent elements, a
network of semantic associations. And finally, all the words of the
vocabulary are distributed along these main lines.

o

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Semantics and the Qur ' an

21

Thus we see that ‘vocabulary’ in this sense is not a mere sum
total of words; 15 that is, it is not a mere haphazard collection of a
great number of words lumped together without order and principle,
each one of them standing by itself without any essential connection
with others (Picture A), On the contrary, the words exist connected
with each other in multiple relationships and thus form a number of
largely overlapping areas or sectors (Picture B ). These areas consti-
tuted by the various relations of words among themselves we may
call ‘semantic fields’.

Each semantic field represents a relatively independent
conceptual sphere which is quite similar in nature to vocabulary. The
difference between ‘vocabulary’ and ‘semantic field’ is obviously a
relative one; essentially there can be no difference at all between
them. For, after all, a ‘semantic field’ is no less an organized whole
than ‘vocabulary’, because it is a whole body of words arranged in
a meaningful pattern representing a system of concepts ordered and
structured in accordance with a principle of conceptual organization.
Vocabulary usually comprises a number of spheres, that is to say,
vocabulary as a larger conceptual field is divided up into several
particular fields. But each of the particular fields, as an organized
sector of the vocabulary, is itself fully entitled to be called a
‘vocabulary’ if it is large enough to be treated as an independent unit.
Only when we consider it as a particular part of a larger whole, do
we distinguish it from the latter it a ‘semantic field’. The latter, in
this sense, is a system within a system, a sub-system.

Theoretically it would, then, be possible to consider even the
Qur’anic vocabulary itself a particular ‘field’ within a still larger
whole, the vocabulary of the Arabic language of that age. If we leave
out of consideration — which, however, we should not do,
practically — the tremendous cultural importance the vocabulary of the
Qur’an in the history of Arabic, and adopt a strictly formal point of
view, then the Qur’anic vocabulary is but a sub-system within a
system. In any case, this seems to give us warning against ignoring
the basic relationship it bears to other significant sections within the
whole vocabulary of the Arabic language. Fortunately for us, some-
thing at least of these other sectors is known to us, chiefly through
the language of pre-Islamic and mukhadram poetry, 16 which has come
down to us thanks to the painstaking efforts of the great philologists
of the Abbasid period. The pre-Islamic po6ts— and partly also the

mukhadram poets — share with the Qur’an a considerable amount of
key-words, but their vocabulary and the underlying world-view are
structured along essentially different lines from those of the Qur’an.

In these two major conceptual systems of old Arabia — the pre-
Islamic and the Qur’anic — even the common elements belong as a
rule in entirely different spheres of thought. And this simply means
that one and the same word usually assumes a completely different
semantic value according as it belongs in this system or that. And
since, chronologically, the vocabulary of pre-Islam is antecedent to
that of the Qur’an, a comparison between them will certainly be quite
fruitful. It will, we might expect, cast an illuminating light on the
original ‘basic’ meaning of some of the key-terms that are found in
the Qur’an. It will further allow us to see exactly how new ideas
arose and how old ideas were modified in Arabia in the critical
period extending from the late Jahiliyyah age to the first Islamic age,
and observe how history acted upon and moulded the thought and life
of the people. This is the main reason why in the following I shall
constantly be referring to pre-Islamic poetry in explaining the
semantic structure of the Qur’anic vocabulary. 17

The above considerations have, I hope, made it sufficiently clear
that vocabulary, far from being a single homogeneous plain, consists
of a great number — or rather we should say, an indefinite
number — of strata of associative connections or spheres of conceptual
association, each one of which corresponds to a predominant interest
of a community in a given period of history and thus epitomizes
some aspect of its ideals, aspirations and preoccupations. Vocabulary,
in short, is a multi-strata structure. And these strata are formed,
linguistically, by groups of key- words, which we have named
‘semantic fields’.

Our next task will be to investigate how individual ‘semantic
fields’ are themselves structured in detail, and how it will be possible
for us to detect one in midst of an extremely complicated whole of
interlocking elements. Thus, to come back to our main topic in this
chapter, which is nothing other than the semantics of the Qur’an, we
shall have to begin by trying to isolate major conceptual spheres of
the Qur’an, then we shall be engaged in discovering how these
various spheres or semantic fields, large and small, area delimited by
their neighbors, how they arc related with one another, how they arc

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Semantics and the Qur 'an

23

internally structured, and how they are organized and integrated into
the largest multi-strata system, /.e, that of the whole Qur’an, besides
paying due attention to the particular structure of the meaning of each
individual key-word.

At this point I must introduce another technical term — ‘focus-
word’ — corresponding to a new methodological concept which will
prove very useful when we are engaged in isolating and analysing
semantic fields. By ‘focus-word’ I would mean a particularly
important key-word which indicates and delimits a relatively inde-
pendent and distinctive conceptual sphere, i.e. ‘semantic field’ in our
terminology, within the larger whole of vocabulary. A focus-word is,
thus, an arche in the Aristotelian sense; it is that in terms of which
a particular sub-system of key- words is set off and distinguished from
the rest. It is the conceptual center of an important semantic sector of
vocabulary, comprising a certain number of key-words.

Since all key-words are, by definition, important terms, it will
be difficult for us to decide definitely as to which, of all the possible
candidates for it, should be taken as the real ‘focus’ of the system.
And here again we must admit the possibility of an element of
arbitrariness coming into our choice. But this must not be allowed to
make us blind to the methodological utility of such a concept.
Besides, the situation is made less embarassing by the fact that the
concept of ‘focus-word’ is, and must necessarily be, a fairly flexible
one. If a certain word is made to act as a focus-word in a certain
semantic field, that does not prevent the same word from behaving
as an ordinary key-word in some other field or fields. And this
reflects faithfully the real nature vocabulary, which, as I said above,
is always and everywhere a multi-strata structure. This I will show
now, in a preliminary way, by one or two simple examples.

The word Tman (belief) — with all the other words derived
directly from the same root, like dmana (to believe), mu ’min
(believer) — for instance, plays in the Qur’an an exceedingly
important part. Nobody will disagree to our regarding it as a focus-
word governing a special field of its own. And as soon as we take it
as a focus-word, we begin to see a certain number of other important
words, that is, key-words, clustering about it as the conceptual article
or focal point, thus forming together a significant conceptual sphere
the whole vocabulary of the Qur’an (Pictupe^i.). These key-words
clustering about Tmdn are of either a positive ( P ) or a negative (N)

A

nature. On the positive side, we have among others, words like shukr
(thankfulness; the verb shakara l *\ Islam , lit. “the giving over of
one’s self (to God)” (the verb aslama ), tasdlq , “considering (the
revealed words) truthful” (the verb saddaqa ), Allah (as the object
‘belief), etc. While the negative side of this conceptual network
consists of words like kufr (disbelief), takdhib , “giving the lie to (the
revealed words)” (the verb kadhdhaba ; kadhib: ‘a lie’), Hsydn
(disobedience), and nifdq (“making a false show of belief’), etc.

Thus a group of important words, i.e., key- words, center around
a word which represents and unifies the whole group, and constitute
in this way a relatively independent field of concepts. If the word
standing at the centre delimits the field in the gross and gives the
main concept without any differentiation, the words centering around
it point each in its own way, to this or that particular aspect of the
main concept; they behave as the principle of differentiation while
the focus-word works as the principle of unification. And the whole
field constitutes by itself a small vocabulary within the larger
vocabulary of the Qur’an, that is, a sub-system of concepts falling
within a larger conceptual system. And this latter consists of a
number of similarly structured sub-systems coexisting with each
other.

This, however, does not yet give a true picture of the complex
nature of system. The complexity of the matter arises from the fact
that each of the words appearing in a sub-system, whether focus-word
or key-word, does not remain confined within the limits of the
particular field, but normally has a multiple relationship to many

24

God and Man in the Qur’an

Semantics and the Qur ’an

25

other words that properly belong to other fields. The focus-word of
a certain field may appear as one of the ordinary key-terms in
another field; contrariwise, a word that belongs in a certain sphere in
the capacity of a key-term may appear in another as its focus-word.
Again, some words may be there that arc common to two or more
fields all in the capacity of simple key-words.

Thus, to give the most remarkable example, the word Allah
appears in semantic field of ‘belief which I have just mentioned, as
a key-word along, with others centering around the focus-word Fmdn ,
because it is, in this particular connection, the grammatical object of
Imdn-dmana bi-Allah (“to believe in God”) being one of the standing
expressions in the Qur’an. The reverse side, I mean, conceptual side
of this is that God is here being taken account of in so far as is the
object of faith. There are, however, several other points of view,
which the word Allah must admittedly be looked upon as an
important focus-word that gathers around itself quite a number of
key-words including Tman itself. To say the truth, the word Allah is
the highest focus-word in Qur’anic vocabulary, reigning over the
entire domain. And this is nothing but the semantic aspect of what
we generally mean by saying that the world of the Qur’an is
essentially theocentric. We shall have occasion to come back to the
point later.

Of the remaining key-words that appear in the same field, Islam
undoubtedly is fully entitled to be considered a focus-word with its
own semantic field. Likewise, the word kufr on the negative side. The
rest, that is, words like shukr , tasdfq and takdhlb , cannot possibly be
given such a central position in any conceptual system in the Qur’an.

The semantic field of kufr (disbelief) may be shown by this
diagram (Picture B). The diagram has been intentionally simplified
by the elimination of all the negative elements, that is, those words
which constitute the positive side of the diagram showing the
semantic field of fmdn (Picture A). All the key-words that surround
the focus-word in this diagram are either those that signify partial and
particular aspects of the concept itself of kufr or those that stand for
concepts closely related to kufr in the Qur’anic context. 19

As has been suggested above, the complexity of the whole
system is greatly increased by the fact that, as a rule, one and the
same key-word belongs, as key-word, in several different fields,
forming in diverse spheres diverse semantical relations. Take for
example the word daldl in the semantic fields of kufr . Dalai properly
means “going astray” or “wandering off the right path”, the verb
being dalla. It is part of the most remarkable religious conception of
the Qur’an that Allah shows to the mankind the “right way” to
salvation but only some of them take that way and many go astray.
In terms of the semantic field we are discussing now, kufr (disbelief)
in God is precisely the necessary result of man’s having chosen — or
having been made to choose, as the case may be 20 — a wrong way
instead of the only right one. In other terms, “disbelief’ and
“wandering from the right path” refer to exactly the same thing from
two different angles. And it is in this capacity that the word daldl has
its proper place in the semantic field of kufr . But the point of interest
is that this is not the only proper place assigned to the word daldl in
the whole system of the Qur’anic vocabulary, as we shall see
presently.

The concept of Way, sirat or sabll , plays a most prominent part
informing the religious conception peculiar to the Qur’an. Even a
casual reader will notice that the Qur’an from beginning to end is
saturated with this idea. Most obviously sirat or its synonym sabll is
the focus-word governing a whole semantic field composed of a big
family of words, each one of which represents in its own way and
from its peculiar point of view an essential facet of the Qur’anic
thought. The key-words of this field may conveniently be classified
under three major groups:

1 . In the first place come those words standing for concepts that
relate to the nature of the Way itself The Qur’an looks at this
problem from the point of view of its being straight (mustaqlm.

26

God and Man in the Qur’an

Semantics and the Qur'an

27

sawl , efc.) or crooked Qiwaj , muwajj , efc).

2. Concepts relating to man’s choosing, or being guided to, the
right way (huda, ihtida , r as had, etc).

3. Concepts of wandering off the right way ( dalal , ghawayah ,

toT?, efc.)

The diagram C gives, in a very simplified form, the structural
framework in which various concepts relating to the central concept
of Way are put together, showing in gross outlines how they are
associated with each other in smaller groups which, again, are
associated with each other in a positive or negative way, and finally
integrated into the large semantic field of Way.

There is here something more important to remark. If we
compare the diagram C with the diagram B — that of the semantic
field of kufr — we will notice immediately that the word dalal
(“swerving from the right path”) is common to both systems. In other
terms, the same word belongs in exactly the same capacity of a key-
term in two different conceptual systems. As a key-term, it fulfils the
same basic function in both B and C, but the concrete role it plays
varies widely accordingly as it is regarded as a member of one or the
other system. Dalai as a key-word of kufr appears in quite a different
light from the same word functioning as a key-word of the field of
sirat , because its associations are different in each case. And yet, on
the other hand, it is also true that the word dalal does establish a
connecting link between the two systems. Thus we see two major
semantic fields of the Qur’an connected with each other in an
extremely subtle but intimate way, -wilholjl losing their relative

independence. Here, of course, I am intentionally simplifying the
matter to the extreme degree, knowing that in many cases
methodological over-simplication brings out better the fundamental
structure of things. In reality, dalal is not the only point of contact
between B and C; there must be discoverable many other such points.
But the essential thing about our present problem is to see that a key-
word may appear in several semantic fields at the same time in the
capacity of a key-word, playing a different part in each one of them
and yet functioning as a connecting link between them.

This, in addition to the fact noted above that the focus-word of
a semantic field may, and does often, make its appearance as an
ordinary key-word in one or more other semantic fields, will give us
a clear insight into the complexity of what is called ‘vocabulary’.
Vocabulary as the sum total of all the semantic fields will then be
seen as a vast and intricate network of multiple relationship that hold
between the words, corresponding to an organized whole of concepts
related with each other in a myriad of associative interconnections.
Such an organized whole of concepts symbolized by the vocabulary
of the community, a total conceptual system, I would call
‘Weltanshauung’ — or, to distinguish it from other types of world-
view obtainable by other methods, e.g. philosophical Weltans-
chauung — ‘ semantic Weltanschauung ’ .

It will have been observed that I have in what precedes always
used the two terms ‘conceptual system’ and ‘vocabulary’ rather
indiscriminately. This is due to the fact that the two, in my view, are
but two different aspects of one and the same thing, that is, the
linguistic is simply the other side of the conceptual. A ‘concept’,
however it may be defined, 21 is in itself but an extremely elusive
wooly thing, hard to grasp and always with a blurred outline. It
begins to exist as an independent entity with a more or less fixed
contour and stability only when it comes to be couched in a linguistic
form, i.e ., a word. All concepts recognized and acknowledged as such
in a given society in a given period of history tend, as a rule, to be
linguistically fixed and stablized sooner or later and be thus given a
tangible and relatively permanent form. Only then do they become
entitled to be considered social entities in the real sense of the word,
commonly open to all those who belong to the community.
Theoretically, I do not in any way deny the possibility of the
existence of l pre-Iinguistic’ concepts, blit ii they do exist, they lie

UOD AND MAN IN THE yUR AN

Semantics and the Qur 'an

ZO

outside the limits of our scientific interest. Anyhow whenever I use
the term concept’ in this book i understand one having a definite
word at its back. The same is true of the whole organized body of
concepts, of which we have been talking. One and the same complex
network ol associations is, in its linguistic aspect, a 'vocabulary’,
and, in its conceptual aspect, a 'Weltanschauung 9 . And it is in this
and only in this sense that we shall be interested, in the following, in
the problem of semantic Weltanschauung of the Qur’an.

It remains to say a word about the ultimate ideal which we shall
have to pursue in carrying on this research. Since every system
worthy of the name must have a patterning principle on which it is
based, it would be natural to presume that, in our particular case too,
not only each individual semantic field but the whole system of the
Qur’anic concepts comprising within itself all the layers of associ-
ative connection is based on a pattern which is peculiar to the
Qur’anic thought, /.e, which makes the latter essentially different
from all non-Qur anic systems of concepts, whether Islamic or non-
Isiamic . 22

To use the words of one of the outstanding pioneers of this kind
of study, Edward Sapir, “there is such a thing as a basic plan, a
certain cut to each system. To isolate this fundamental plan, or as
Sapir himself has named it, the “structural genius” governing the
nature and working mechanism of the whole Qur’anic system must
constitute the ultimate aim of a semanticist approaching this
Scripture, as long as he understands the discipline of semantics as a
cultural science. For only when we succeed in doing this, can wc
hope to succeed in bringing to light the Weltanschauung of the
Qur’an, which will, philosophically be nothing other than the very
“Qur’anic ontology” to which wc referred the beginning of this
chapter

All this is of course a mere ideal, which, we must admit, is
practically very hard to attain, or even never to be attained. The
present study as a whole is but a first and very modest step towards
this ultimate goal.

zy

Notes

1. For a well-balanced broad survey of the entire field covered by
semantics together with a convenient brief presentation of the historical
background, the reader is referred to Prof. Stephen Ullmann’s work,
Semantics — An Introduction to the Science of Meaning, Oxford, 1962.

2. In elaborating the idea of semantics as a kind of Weitanscbauungslebre
I am greatly indebted to Prof. Leo Weisgerber of Bonn, who, since
many years, has constantly emphasized the significance of human
language as an intellectual process of world- formation ( Weltgestaltung).
For a brief but very impressive summary exposition of his thesis see
his reef Grundformen sprachlicher Weltgestaltung , Koln u. Opladen,
1963. In many of the essential points his Humboldtian philosophy of
language coincides perfectly with what is known today in the English-
speaking world under the name of Sapir- Whorf hypothesis. As regards
this latter theory see a most lucid critical examination by Prof. Paul
Henle in Language, Thought and Culture , Michigan, 1958, Chapter 1.
To all appearance, these two schools have long been developing the
same type of linguistic theory on both sides of the Atlantic without
being acquainted with each other.

3. See later, Chapter 4, where the Qur’anic evidence concerning the pre-
Islamic concept of Allah is discussed in a more systematic way.

4. In quoting from the Qur’an, I give first Fliigel’s numbering of the
verses and then that of the standard Egyptian edition (in brackets)
whenever there happens to be discrepancy between the two.

5. i.e., evidence showing that they are real.

6. See Chapter 7, section III.

7. ‘Antarah: Diwdn, ed. ‘Abd al-Ra’uf, Cairo, p. 22. Here the poet is
addressing his beloved girl ‘ Ablah. The concept of the angel of death
plays a considerable role in Qur’anic eschatology. A number of
important passages (e.g. VI, 93) describe how angels will come and
seize the soul at the critical moment of the death-struggle and bring it
before the Supreme Judge. Besides, this concept itself was not in any
way alien to the Jahill mind ( cf ‘Antarah, ibid . p. 81, v. 13)

8. Surah al-Sajdah (32:13).

9. See Chapter 9, section II, where these and other related words are
carefully analyzed from the particular standpoint of the field semantics.
Sec also the following section, where the two important words kufr and
Islam will be treated as an illustration of the technical distinction
between the ‘basic’ and the ‘relational’ meaning.

SO rah 33:63, for example: “Men will ask you concerning the Hour
{s<Vuh) Say: The knowledge of it is only with Allah. What can make

10

30

God and Man in the Qur’an

you know it? It may be that the Hour ( sd'ah ) is nigh.”

11. For more details about kufr , see later, Chapter 9, and also my earlier
work The Structure of the Ethical Terms in the Koran , Tokyo, 1959,
where a whole chapter (9) is devoted to a consideration of the meaning
of this word in the Qur’anic context.

12. 6:91, where reference is made to the Jews who jealously keep their
sacred Book of Moses having “put it into parchments”.

13. c/, for instance, 52:30. , ^ e ^

14. For example, in 27:26, we read: ^ j ft Ui V dJi

(“Allah! There is no god but He, the Lord of the great throne”), and
in 20:4[5]: Js> (“The Compassionate One sits upon

the Throne”). The importance of the concept of “Throne” may be seen
from the favorite Qur’anic expression used in describing Allah
“The Possessor of the Throne” (17:44[42]; 85:15).

15. The common image of vocabulary as a dictionary where words are
neatly arranged in an alphabetical order is out of question here.

16. A technical term for designating those who lived the earlier half of
their lives in Jahiliyyah , and the second half in Islam; in short, the
contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad.

17. We may also go a step further in this direction and try to follow from
this partcular point of view the Islamic culture in the ages of its
progressive movement and creative development. The semantics of the
Qur’an, once established, will supply a good and truly necessary
preliminary to a fruitful study of all other semantic systems that arose
after the Qur’anic period: theology, jurisprudence, philosophy,
mysticism, grammar and rhetoric, to mention only the most important
ones. This, of course, lies far beyond the scope the present studv. But
I will try to give at least some idea of this interesting problem in the
next chapter.

18. As regards the close connection between this and l man , see above, p.
15. Kufr (the verb kafara) has also been discussed there cursorily. As
to the word nifdq , see my book The Structure of the Ethical Terms in
the Koran , p. 168 ff.

19. For a detailed analysis of all these words, see The Structure of the
Ethical Terms in the Koran , p. 113 ff.

20. The Qur’anic text suggests these two alternative views regarding this
problem, a fact which causes later in Islamic theology the famous
aporia of Divine predestination and human free will. See later, Chapter
6, section II.

21. In this book, as I did in my earlier one to which reference was made
in the course of this chapter, I understand the word ‘concept’ in the
scientific sense in which it is used by the authors of the outstanding

i ema

work, A Study of Thinking, New York, 1956, IS. Brunner, II
Goodnow and G. A. Austin. The book contains m the form of an
appendix a no less important paper on Language and Categories y

Roger Brown. . . u

22. This we shall see in .he next chapter. Particularly interesting w.l be
the historical relation between the religious world-view of the Qur an
and that of Islamic theology.

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

33

CHAPTER 2

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

Secondly, by following the semantic development of some of the
key-terms of the Qur’an in non-Qur’anic systems that came into
existence in Islam in course of time, we may be able to throw a new
side-light on the peculiarity of the meanings which those words had
in the Qur’an itself. Lastly, a careful examination of the problem of
the possibility and significance of a historical semantics will clarify,
by contrast, both the advantages and limitations of the methods and
principles peculiar to static semantics, and, thus, enable us to
combine in the most fruitful way the two semantics in analysing the
structure of the Qur’anic vocabulary.

I. Synchronic and Diachronic Semantics

Properly speaking, most of the problems dealt with in the present
chapter do not fall within the scope of this book which, as has been
made abundantly clear in the previous chapter, purports to be strictly
a study of the Weltanschauung of the Qur’an through its vocabulary.
This naturally determines the extent to which our consideration will
be allowed to go. Of the ‘history’ of the Qur’anic key-terms only the
pre-Islamic, i.e., pre-Qur’anic part is necessary for our special
purpose, in so far as it sheds a clear light on the formation of the
‘basic’ meanings of the words. The historical development of the
meanings in the post-Qur’anic ages is not in any way a matter of
direct concern to us.

If, in spite of this obvious fact, we still insist on paying attention
at this point to a few at least of the significant questions raised by
historical semantics regarding the vicissitudes that some of the key-
terms of the Qur’an underwent in the course of history, it is chiefly
for the following three reasons. First: since, generally speaking, an
examination of a question from two or more different, but closely
related, angles usually ends in a deeper and more comprehensive
view of the matter, we might reasonably expect that in our particular
case too, considering the problem of ‘vocabulary’ anew as a historical
process, will, as a continuation of the above discussion, help towards
clarifying some important aspects of the theoretical problems that
have not been discussed fully in the last chapter.

32 “

D 1

C'C’

Now to go right into the medias res , ‘vocabulary’ may be looked
at from two basically different methodological standpoints. In modem
linguistics these two angles or points of view are called ‘diachronic’
and ‘synchronic’, respectively. Diachrony, as its etymology would
suggest, is a view of language, which as a matter of principle
emphasizes the element of time in everything linguistic. Thus
vocabulary is, diachronically, a bundle of words, each one of which
is growing and changing independently in its own peculiar way.
Some words in the group may come to a stop, that is, cease to be
used in the society at a certain period (,4s); others may continue
being in use for a longer time (5s); again new words may make their
debut on the stage at a certain definite point of time and begin their
history from that period (Cs).

If wc cut horizontally the flow of history at a certain period, a
cross-section is obtained, which may be pictured as a flat surface
formed by a number of words that have survived the flow of time up
to that point. On this surface, as we sec, /fs, 5s and Cs appear all

34

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

35

together, regardless of whether they have a long history behind them
(A l and B 2 ) or a short one (A 2 and B j), or even none (C), while those
that have already ceased to be active before this point (Ds) naturally
do not participate in the composition of this surface, regardless of
whether they have died out quite recently (D^ or long ago (D 2 ). Such
a surface is precisely what we have meant in the preceding pages by
‘vocabulary’ — an organized system of words and concepts. For it is
on such a surface, and on such a surface alone that words appear to
our eyes in the form of a complicated network of concepts. And the
point of view which cuts across the historical lines of words and
enables us in this way to obtain a static system of words, we call
‘synchronic’.

We may do well to remark that vocabulary in this particular
sense, i.e., a static surface of words is something artificial, to be very
exact. It is a static state produced artificially by our stopping with
one stroke the flow of history of all the words of a language at a
certain point of time. The resulting cross section gives us the
impression of being static and standing still, but in reality it only
looks like so. To put it in another way, it is static only when we look
at it from a macroscopic point of view. Microscopically, the surface
is seething with life and movement. This latter point comes out very
clearly when a language is in a critical, revolutionary period, like, for
example, modem Turkish. Old elements keep dropping off, new
elements keep coming in; some of the newcomers find a good place
in the system, but many of them disappear quickly to be replaced by
others. The whole vocabulary changes its
aspect even at very short intervals. And
when a language stands in such a stage of
transition and transformation, it is
extremely difficult to obtain a relatively
stable, static surface. 1

Be this as it may, in normal cases we
can obtain as many surfaces as we like by
simply making such artificial horizontal
cuts across the historical flow of words at
several points (cross-sections /, //, III , for
example, in the diagram). And if we
compare these surfaces with each other,
whether the whole surfaces or only some

particular sections of them, we are doing historical semantics.

Historical semantics, thus understood does not consist in tracing
the history of individual words per se in order to see how they
change their meaning in the course of history. This latter is the
typically, 19 lh century approach to language. Real historical seman-
tics, as we understand it now, begins only when we study the history
of words in terms of the whole static systems to which they belong,
when, in other words, we compare with one another two or more
‘surfaces’ which one and the same language, say Arabic, presents at
different stages of its history, separated from each other by an
interval of time.

The interval may be made long or short according to the purpose
of our analysis. For instance, even the language of the Qur’an itself
may be regarded as a historical process extending over some twenty
years with two distinct periods, the Makkan and the Madlnan. In that
case, we may quite reasonably make two horizontal cuts across the
historical development of this language these critical points, and
compare the two cross-sections with each other, if our aim happens
to be the semantical study of the development of Islamic thought
within the confines of the Qur’an. In fact, since Theodor Noldeke
published his epoch-making view on this matter, many important
discoveries have been made regarding the ‘history’ of the Qur’anic
vocabulary, which have made it clear that the language of Revelation
underwent a profound change semantically after the Prophet s
migration to Madlnah. 2 Or, adopting rather a long-range perspective,
we may also reasonably treat the Qur’anic vocabulary as a whole as
a static system and compare it with other systems which came into
existence later in Islam, as we are actually going to do in the present
chapter.

Now, as a general rule, in the case of a young and vigorously
growing culture like that of the early Islam, the historical develop-
ment of language shows a very marked tendency towards progressing
complexity and proliferation. In our particular case, the triumph of
Islam established the unshakable authority of the Qur’an as the
Sacred Book, and the direct linguistic effect of this made itself felt
in the fact that practically the whole Arabic vocabulary was brought
under the sway of the Qur’anic vocabulary, and the Arabic language
in its entirely eame to be affected gravely by this fact.

In an al tempt In show this in the simplest and clearest possible

36

37

God and Man in the Qur’an

way, I would isolate three different semantic ‘surfaces’ in the early
history of the Arabic vocabulary: (1) pre-Qur’anic, or Jahill , (2)
Qur’anic, and (3) post-Qur’anic, particularly Abbasid. At the first
stage thus distinguished, i.e., the pre-Islamic, we have, roughly
speaking, three different systems of words, with three different world-
views underlying them: (1) a purely Bedouin vocabulary representing
the oldest and most typically Arabian Weltanschauung of nomadism,
(2) a mercantile vocabulary, which is naturally closely related to, and
based on, the former, which, however represents quite a different
spirit and world-outlook, an outcome of the recent development of
the mercantile economy in Makkah, which is therefore, deeply
penetrated by words and ideas peculiar to the merchants of this
town, 3 and (3) the Judeo-Christian vocabulary a system of religious
terms in use among the Jews 4 and the Christians living in Arabia,
including the more problematic Hanifitic system. 5 These three are the
major constituents of the pre-Islamic Arabic vocabulary.

The vocabulary of the Qur’an is, linguistically, a mixture of
these three different systems. This does not mean, however, that
words drawn from the three different sources exist in the Qur’an side
by side as heterogeneous elements. The Qur’anic vocabulary is, as
has been repeatedly emphasized in the preceding pages, a large
semantic field, and as such it is an organized totality, a self-sufficient
system of words into which all words, whatever their origin, have
been integrated with an entirely new systematic interpretation. Take,
for example, again the most important word Allah. The name of
Allah , as we have already seen and as we shall see more in detail
later, was not unknown to the pre-Islamic Arabs; it was widely
known not only within the confines of the monotheistic Judeo-
Christian circles, but even among the pure nomads at large. The fact,
however, that the word was in use in Jdhiliyyah should not make us
blind to another more remarkable fact that this same word Allah
means something quite different in the Qur’an from what it meant in
pre-Islamic times. And here we see the importance of the methodo-
logical concept of ‘relational’ that has been introduced in the last
chapter. The same old word Allah acquires in the Qur’an quite a
peculiar relational meaning because of its position in the organized
whole.

If wc compare the Qur’anic vocabulary with the pre-Islamic one
as a whole, we notice immediately that the former has the supreme

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

focus-word, Allah, which presides not only over one particular
semantic field within the vocabulary, but over the entire vocabulary
comprising all the semantic fields, that is, all the smaller conceptual
systems that fall under it, while the pre-Islamic system of words has
no such supreme focus-word. 6 This is one of the most fundamental
differences between the two systems. And although, as we shall see,
the pre-Qur’anic and the Qur’anic concepts have much in common
in the meaning structure — not only as regards the ‘basic’ meaning but
even a greater part of the ‘relational’ one — yet this one fundamental
difference alone is enough to make the two systems totally different
in nature and structure from each other in regard to the concept of
Allah.

a b

In the Qur’anic system, there is not even one single semantic field
that is not directly connected with, and governed by the central
concept of Allah ( Picture A)? This situation it is that, as I said in the
last chapter, the non-semanticists usually mean when they say that the
world of the Qur’an is essentially ‘theocentric’. In the pre-Islamic
system Allah is but a member of one specific semantic field (Picture
B). There is a kind of conceptual coherence in the Qur’anic world-
view, a sense of a real system based on, and centered round the
concept of God, which is not to be found in the Jahill system. For
here, in this new system, all the semantic fields, and consequently all
the keyterms are under the sway of this central and highest focus-
word. In fact, nothing can escape from it; not only those concepts
that are directly connected with religion and faith, but all moral ideas,
and even concepts representing the most mundane aspects of human
life, such as marriage and divorce, inheritance, commercial matters
like contracts, debts, tisuary, weights and measures, etc., have beer

38

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

39

brought into direct relation with the concept of God.

Moreover, in the JahilT system, the concept of Allah stands side
by side with that of alihah, ‘gods’ or ‘divinities’, with absolutely no
incompatibility between them, except, of course, in the more
narrowly limited and very particular field of Allah peculiar to the
pre-Islamic Jews and Christians, which is not being taken account of
for the moment . 8 There is in the JahilT system no sharp contrast
observable between Allah and other alihah even where the former is
made to stand at the top of the hierarchy of all supernatural beings.
Besides this semantic field of supernatural beings itself occupies quite
a peripheral place in the whole conceptual system of Jdhiliyyah in
comparison with other more important fields that have more direct
relevance to the tribal life of the Arabs, the sense of honor, for
example, and social and individual virtues that have nothing at all to
do with God and religion.

There should be no misunderstanding here.' In the Qur’anic
system, too, there is the concept of alihah. We must not confuse the
ontological order of things with the semantic one. In other words, the
fact that the Qur’anic world is essentially monotheistic should not
lead us into thinking erraneously that semantically as well as
ontologically, Allah stands alone without any peers. On the contrary
there are concepts of ‘gods’ and ‘idols’ in the Qur’anic system. Only,
all these stand in a negative relation to Allah; they are something the
existence of which must be denied most emphatically. Speaking in
more semantical terms, they are there in the Qur’an to be connected
with the concept of ‘falsehood’ (, batil ), while the concept of Allah is
to be connected with that of ‘truth’ ( haqq ).

A further implication of the above statement is this: when we
say that the name of Allah came into the Qur’anic system from the
pre-Islamic one, this should not be taken to mean that of all the
semantic elements associated with the name, only those that were
considered ‘good’ from the Islamic point of view were accepted,
while all ‘bad’ elements were simply left behind. The fact is that all
the elements, both good and bad, came into the Qur’anic system and
only in this new field some were accepted and some were rejected.
And this process of rejection and acceptance is vividly depicted in the
Qur’an itself. Otherwise, words like shank , (partner, viz. of Allah),
and nidd (similar one) would never have be^n given a place there.

Since the Qur’an is, linguistically, a work of genuine Arabic, il

will readily be seen that all the words used in this Scripture have a
pre-Qur’anic or Islamic background. Many of them came from the
rank and file of pre-Islamic Arabic. In other terms, many of them,
even those that were raised to status of key-words in the Qur’an, had
been in pre-Islamic times common words standing far below the level
of key-words. Such was for example the word taqwa which we shall
analyze in detail in a later context . 9 As everybody knows the word
acquired in the Qur’an an enormous importance as one of the most
typically Qur’anic key-terms, one of the cornerstones on which the
whole edifice of the Qur’anic piety was based. But before that, in
Jdhiliyyah , it was an extremely common word that meant simply a
very ordinary sort of animal behavior — self-defensive attitude with an
accompanying sense of fear.

But there were also a good number of words that came into the
Qur’an in the capacity of key-terms with an important pre-Islamic
history behind them. To put it in another way, some of the Qur’anic
key-words had already been playing in Jdhiliyyah a remarkable role
as key-words. Only, their semantic structure changed profoundly as
they were transposed from one system to the other. As an illustration
of the main thesis of this chapter, this latter case presents a more
interesting — because more complicated — problem. As a matter of
fact, some examples of this phenomenon haye been given in the last
chapter. But there they were considered in connection with problems
of a somewhat different nature. Here I will give an extremely
interesting example as a forerunner, so to speak, of what will come
later in abundance.

The word I have in mind is harm. This word was a very
important key-term in Jdhiliyyah, meaning nobility of lineage — a man
“of noble birth”, going back to an illustrious ancestor by an
unblemished pedigree. And since, in the old Arab conception of
human virtue, extravagant and unlimited generosity was the most
conspicuous and concrete manifestation of a man’s nobility, karTm
had acquired also the meaning of a man characterized by an extra-
vagant generosity going to the degree of our concept of a
‘squanderer’.

The meaning-content of this word had to suffer a drastic change
when it was put, in the Qur’anic context, into a close relation with
taqwd to which a passing reference has just been made. The Qur’an
declared with utmost clarity that “the most karTm (noble)” of all men

40

God and Man in the Qur’an

was the one who took the attitude of taqwa towards Allah:

Jri

Surely the noblest of you all in the sight of Allah is one who is
characterized by the greatest taqwa.

Al-Hujurat, 49:13

Such a combination of two words, no one would ever have dreamt
of in pre-Islamic times. This old Arabic word karlm, epitomizing an
important aspect of the Arab outlook on life, was almost
forcibly — we might say — put into an entirely new sphere of the
monotheistic piety of Islam. It would be no exaggeration to say that
this was indeed a revolution, revolution in the history of the moral
ideas of the Arabs, for nobody in ancient Arabia would ever had
thought of giving a formal definition of karam (nobility) in terms of
taqwa (fear of God). From now on, a man worthy to be called
‘noble’ in the real sense of the word was not a man of noble birth
belonging to a noble family and noble tribe, nor was he a man who
would go on squandering impulsively and thoughtlessly all his
possessions without stopping to reflect for a moment that he and his
whole family might, by his acting in this way, be driven to utter
misery and ruin the very next morning. But precisely this latter
feature used to be considered the most distinctive mark of a ‘noble’
man. And the ancient poets never tired of praising and extolling this
virtue, for it was, together with that of bravery and valor on the
battlefield, almost the only means of preserving one’s ancestral
honor.

if We seek to defend our ancestral honor,” a poet in the Hamasah says,
“with their (=our camels’) meat and with their milk; for, verily, a
karlm is man who is able to defend (viz. his honor which has been
handed down to him from his illustrious ancestors.)” 10

This character which, as I have said, was one of the cardinal
virtues in the eyes of the pre-Islamic Arabs, is, from the new
Qur’anic point of view, not a real virtue at all. Nor is it real
generosity even, because the ultimate source from which it springs is

I

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

41

sheer vainglory and pride, the desire to make a show of generosity.
Such a man is, in the language of the Qur’an, “expends of his wealth
simply for the pleasure of an ostentatious display, and not from his
belief in Allah and the Last Day”:

al-Baqarah , 2:266 [264]

In another place it is clearly stated that those who squander away
their possession from such a motive are but “brothers of Satan”.

0} 0 yJ-i— J jXfi ^ j j J jl Ij

Give the kinsman his due , and the poor, and the wayfarer . But
never waste in sheer waste for those who squander are brothers
of Satan , and Satan is ever ungrateful to his Lord.

Al-Isrd 9 or Banu Isra’il , 17:28-29 [26-27]

Here we see karlm which once embodied the highest Jdhill ideal
of reckless generosity as the direct manifestation of nobility, in the
process of transforming itself into something entirely new and
different through the influence of a new semantic situation. The idea
of generosity itself suffers a profound change; at the same time, and
in correlation with it, the word karlm comes to be applied to a truly
pious believer who, instead of expending his wealth blindly and
thoughtlessly and merely for display, never hesitates to expend it for
a definite purpose which is really ‘noble’ in the new conception, i.e.,
in alms, “in God’s way” (ft sabll Alldh) ] \ being always careful to
strike the happy medium, between sheer prodigality and sheer miser-
liness, 12 and that from the deep religious motive of taqwa .

Thus one and the same word makes its appearance with the same
basic meaning in these two successive systems, but it is given an
entirely different value and entirely different connotations according
as it is used as a key-term in one or the other because of the parti-
cular associations it forms around itself in the particular sector of the
system. And exactly the same thing happens between the Qur’anic
vocabulary and the subsequent systems, albeit in a far subtler and,

42

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

43

therefore, less obvious way. This we shall see presently.

II. The Qur’an and the Post-Qur’anic Systems

When we come down to the third stage of development as
distinguished above, that is, the classical age of Islamic culture, we
meet with a proliferation of relatively independent conceptual
systems. In other words, Islam produced many different systems of
thought in the post-Qur’anic periods, theology, jurisprudence,
political theory, philosophy, mysticism being among the most
important of them. Each of these cultural products of Islam
developed its own conceptual system, i.e., its own ‘vocabulary’, itself
consisting of a number of sub-systems just as we have seen in the
case of the Qur’anic vocabulary. Thus we are fully entitled to speak
of the vocabulary of Islamic theology, the vocabulary of Islamic
jurisprudence, the vocabulary of Islamic mysticism etc., in the exact
sense as defined above. And the whole body of these various
vocabularies constitutes the vocabulary of the Arabic language in the
classical age of Islam.

In view of the tremendous and, indeed, peerless importance of
the Qur’anic vocabulary as the very language of Divine Revelation,
it is quite natural that all the post-Qur’anic systems were deeply
influenced by it. All of them, in their linguistic aspect, were in
varying degrees dependent and based on the vocabulary of the
Qur’an. They could grow and flourish, so to speak, only on the soil
that had already been prepared by the language of Revelation.
Semantically this situation may adequately be described by saying
that many, if not all of the key-terms in these systems were supplied
by the Qur’anic vocabulary. Even in the case of words that were not
capable of being traced back to the Qur’anic source, conscious effort
was often made to relate them in some way or other to this or that
expression in the Qur’an. The authority of the Qur’an was so great
that every system had thus to have recourse to the Qur’anic
vocabulary for its material elements, if not directly at least indirectly.

Besides, speaking in more general terms, the Arabic
language — or, any language for that matter — however rich it may be,
is not rich enough to supply each of the different systems with an
entirely new and different set of words. So nfost of the elements used

in constructing the systems must of necessity be common to them.
Only, each elaborates nearly the same elements in its own peculiar
way, and thereby constructs an independent network of words and
concepts.

It is not necessary for our present purpose — nor is it at all
possible — to consider in detail the semantic structure of these post-
Qur’anic systems. Each would call for separate treatment. Here I
must content myself with referring to only three of them — theology,
philosophy and mysticism — and giving a few typical examples in
each case in order to illustrate the main contention of this chapter.

Of all the conceptual systems that grow up in the classical period
of Islam, theology (kalam) is the one that is most faithful and loyal
to the Qur’anic vocabulary. The theological thinking begins to
flourish among the Muslims partly under Greek influence but largely
and mainly as a natural growth necessitated by the changed historical
conditions in which Islamic civilization finds itself now. So let
theology be our first object of consideration.

The very first point to notice about Islamic theology is that its
material is almost wholly Qur’anic. And in this particular case, we
may justifiably take the word ‘material’ in a wider sense than strictly
linguistic, for almost all the basic problems of theology owe their
origin to the Qur’an itself, and are therefore traceable in some way
or other to the Qur’anic thought and its verbal expressions. Islamic
theology, in short, is essentially based on the teaching of the Qur’an.
It was, after all, the result of the effort of the human intellect and
reason to grasp this very teaching more systematically and theore-
tically. It is natural, then, that its key-terms* were largely supplied by
the Qur’anic vocabulary. Almost all the major concepts of Islamic
theology were directly taken from the Qur’anic text, and in many
cases theological terminology was but a scholastic and theoretic
elaboration of the words and phrases of the Qur’an. Of course, the
principle itself of conceptual organization was quite different in each
case; otherwise there would have been no theological vocabulary as
an independent system of concepts. And yet, on the whole, the
vocabulary of Islamic theology may be said to have remained more
faithful to the Qur’anic one than any other system.

Thus theology would seem to furnish a very suitable occasion
for discussing in concrete terms one of our major theoretic problems.
If, on (he one hand, the theological vocabulary is, in a certain sense,

44

45

God and Man in the Qur’an

a continuation and development of the Qu’ranic one, and, as such,
owes much of its material to the latter, and yet, on the other hand,
constitutes an independent conceptual stem by organizing the whole
material according to its own principle of structural ization, then the
difference between the two will have to be sought mainly in the
‘relational’ side of the key-terms. The difference, however, is in
many cases extremely subtle, and difficult to grasp, particularly when
exactly the same words are used in almost exactly the same contexts.
The opposition of kafir (infidel) and muslim (Muslim) offers an
excellent example, as we shall few paragraphs later.

I would like to begin by taking up an easier case. Even the word
Allah is made to change its conceptual structure when it leaves the
Qur’an and the theological system. In theology, the central position
occupied by this word remains of course the same as in the Qur’anic
vocabulary. It is still the highest focus-word reigning over the whole
system. And all the key-concepts are still under the undisputed sway
of this highest concept. So, apparently, nothing has changed. And yet
we observe here a profound inner transformation that has taken place
just under the surface.

The structure of the concept of Allah was transformed in this
new system, first and foremost, by its having been put into a direct
conceptual relation to the so-called Ninety-Nine Most Beautiful
Names. Of course, if we look for these ‘ninety-nine names’ in the
Qur’an, we find them already adumbrated everywhere. The Qur’an
is full of words and phrases that describe Allah from various angles:
Allah is such and such — for example, He is wahid (One), ghafur
(All-forgiving), rahim (Merciful) etc. etc . ; and Allah does such and
such a thing — for example, He “speaks”, He “creates” etc. etc. But
these and the like are there in the Qur’an as simple descriptions that
should be taken naively as they are, without sophistication. In
theology, this principle of simple and unsophisticated understanding
is no longer kept intact. For the theologians, all the concepts of this
kind represent so many manifestations of the very nature of God;
they are, in other words, all Divine attributes, that is, inherent
qualities of the Divine essence.

This means simply that the concept of Allah has now come to
be understood in terms of ‘essence’ (dhat) and ‘attributes’ ( sifat ), and
this, again, means that the theologians have now assimilated the
typically Greek way of thinking, which terids to interpret the whole

Qur'anic Key-Terms in History

world of being and existence in terms of ‘essences’ and ‘attributes’.
As part of the grand scale process ot the arabization of the Hellenistic
heritage, so characteristic of the Abbas id period, this may have to be
considered an achievement worthy of acclamation. But front the
purely and strictly Qur’anic point of view, this marks nothing but a
big step away from the original form of thought. 11 We read, for
example, in the Qur’an that God “speaks” to man, but in no way is
speaking regarded there as an attribute of Allah; there is not even a
slightest suggestive hint tor such interpretation. While in theology
‘speech’ (kaldm) constitutes one of the most essential Divine
attributes. This is not surely the Qur’anic approach. And the concept
of God itself, when understood in this way as a transcendental
‘essence’ opposed to its ‘attributes’, is no longer a Qur’anic concept
in its original form.

It is not the scholastic theology alone that caused such a radical
inner transformation in the conceptual structure of the word Allah.
Other systems did same thing, each according to its dominant mode
of thinking. This point will be made thoroughly clear by a compa-
rison of the theological vocabulary with those of mysticism and
philosophy-

There are grounds for regarding Islamic mysticism, or Sufism,
also as continuation and development of the basic religious teaching
of the Qur’an. Semantically this means that the mystics make use of
many Qur’anic words as their key terms. Compared with the
theologians’ use of the same words, however, theirs is in most cases
extremely free and even arbitrary. They tend to attach to the words
they find interesting in the Qur'an meanings— i.e. ‘relational’
meanings— that are detached from the actual contexts, their guiding
principle being always one of symbolic interpretation. It is quite
natural that the symbolic meanings that they read into the words turn
out in many cases to be of an essentially different nature and far
removed from those attached to the same words by the theologians.

The mystic system affects most profoundly even the central
concept of Allah. Several remarkable points of difference occur tc
our mind as worthy of notice in this connection, but here it will be
enough to consider briefly the most conspicuous and decisive one. Ir
all non -mystical systems as well as in the Qur an itself, Allah
epistemologically, can only be an object of 'itm. In other words Got
cun only he known to man indirectly. Man is not allowed to approacl

46

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur'anic Key-Terms in History

47

God too closely. You cannot see God without any veil ( hijab ), at
least in this world . 14 There can be here no intimacy, i.e., an
immediate personal communion. Certainly, God reveals Himself, but
He does so only through his dyat (signs). And man, on his part, is
allowed to know God only through the dyat, that is, natural things
and natural phenomena understood as so many ‘signs’ indicative of
Divine goodness, majesty and power . 15 Even Moses who, in the
Qur’an, is allowed to come closest to Divine Presence cannot look
God in the face. This kind of knowledge given “from behind the
veil”, to use the Qur’anic expression, is ‘ilm. It is an indirect sort of
knowledge that can only be gained through some other things that are
directly given to man . 16

The mystics, in Islam as elsewhere, claim to have a knowledge
of God that is essentially different from this: ma'rifah, that is
‘gnosis’, a direct, immediate, and most intimate sort of personal
contact, which in some form or other culminates in a personal union
of the knower and the known, just as a lover and his beloved become
united in the experience of love into one person.

As is obvious, this changes everything. Not only is the concep-
tion of human nature and human psychology completely transformed,
but the very concept of God must necessarily change in its semantic
structure by being made an object of ma ‘rifah, while in the non-
mystical systems it can only be an object of 'ilm. Semantically we
may describe this situation by saying that the ‘relational’ meaning of
the word Allah varies according as it is taken is the object of mystical
ma ‘rifah or as the object of normal human ‘ilm.

Of course, as long as you are a Muslim, Allah you believe in
remain objectively always the same God of the Qur’an, whether you
are a mystic or theologian. But the aspect of this God, which mani-
fests itself in your conception of Him is quite different in each case.

connotatum
denotatum or

concept

epistemological

means man

In the diagram here given, a man {a), an ordinary orthodox Muslim,
forms for himself the concept of God through ‘ilm, while (h), a

mystic, does the same through ma ’rifah. The resulting concepts A and
B, as concepts, arc essentially different from each other, although the
denotatum, i.e., the objective God Himself, lying beyond these
concepts is exactly the same. So essential and fundamental was this
difference between the two concepts that the Islamic orthodoxy often
came to the conclusion that the concept A and concept B of God
could not refer to one and the same God. And this naturally led to a
very grave indictment against the mystics. For if, in reality, the
denotatum itself — not the concept — of the God of the mystics was
different, the latter would simply be doing nothing other than worshi-
pping a different God from the God of Islamic Revelation. Many
mystics had to face the constant danger of being accused of heresy
by the intransigent orthodoxy, in spite of all the references they made
to the Qur’an in defence of their position. In this sense the mystic
exegesis of the Qur’an is of paramount importance and interest to a
semanticist . 17

When we turn from mysticism to philosophy, we find the same
process of semantic transformation pushed further ahead. If, of all the
post-Qur’anic systems, theology remained on the whole most faithful
to the original Qur’anic usage of words and concepts, Islamic
philosophy took a bold and determined step in the direction of arabiz-
ing a foreign system, and this is disclosed with particular clearness
in the usage of the most important Islamic key-terms, Allah, for
example, nabiy (prophet), wahy (revelation), aql (intellect), and
others. The matter is complicated because it is not a simple
straightforward departure from the Qur’anic usage of these words.
The philosophers, who, Arabs or non- Arabs, used Arabic as their
intellectual tool in thinking and wnting, struggled, on the one hand,
to build up a new vocabulary in Arabic language, which would be
capable of expressing with exactitude Greek ideas and concepts, and
yet, on the other, tried to attach it to the Qur’anic tradition. Hence
the very peculiar nature of the relational meanings that grew around
the Qur’anic terms.

Thus the word Allah, which is being the central point of oui
interest now, does no longer denote in philosophy simply the samt
thing as that living God of Creation and Revelation as He is sc
vividly depicted in the Qur’an, Among the theologians, too, the
concept suffers, as wc have just seen, a drastic change, and yet it i:
still an intellectual and theoretic elaboration of the original Qur’anit

48

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

49

conception. Here, among the philosophers, the underlying image is
not so much the Qur’anic one of God as the Aristotelian concept of
the cosmic ‘Mover’ plus that of the Plotinian ‘One’. The philosophers
do their best to show that they are just trying to bring out the deep
philosophic meanings that lie hidden under the Qur’anic expression.
They do use Qur’anic words and expressions in describing Allah;
they refer to the Qur’an, and they treat problems raised by the
Qur’an. But this of course does not satisfy the pious believers, as is
shown in the most outspoken way by the harsh expression which the
intransigent theologian Ibn Taymiyyah uses in reference to them: “a
small insignificant group of the ignorant philosophers” (Juhhdl al-
faldsifah).

The philosophers assert, for instance, that their ‘God’ can be in
reality no other than the God of the Qur’an, the Lord of Creation.
But there appears on the stage a man like al-GhazzalT ls who tries to
tear off mercilessly the veil to disclose the real nature — as he sees
it — of the philosophical concepts. He shows for example, how in his
view Avicenna’s khalq (creation) is but a mock-concept, i.e., a
pseudo-concept of creation, which has, in reality, nothing at all to do
essentially with the true Qur’anic concept of Divine Creation, and is
even susceptible of being considered a flat negation of the latter,
because it is nothing but a disguised form of the neo-Platonic concept
of Emanation.

It will be obvious that the language of Islamic philosophy
presents a number of extremely interesting problems to the seman-
ticist. Some of them that appear to be directly relevant to our imme-
diate concern will be dealt with theoretically towards the end of the
present chapter. There I shall try to show by some concrete examples
the truly singular make-up of the philosophical vocabulary as a
conceptual system in Islam. Meanwhile I would like to go back to the
vocabulary of the theologians, from which we have deviated, and
discuss a few interesting cases which would illustrate my main
contention on historical semantics.

I have no intention at all here to go into historical details even
as regards the four or five key-terms that I am going to take up. This
is evidently not a proper place for a discussion of that kind; it would
belong to the semantics of Islamic theology. My intention is only to
show, in connection with immediate theoretic problem that concerns
us, how in course of lime Ihere occur gradually and almost imper-

ceptibly, in most cases — shifts of emphasis, changes in interest and
subjective approach in the understanding of one and the same word,
as it moves from one system to another. What I am going to give is
a broad and general outline, just the skeleton of the matter, so to
speak, without flesh and blood.

With this initial understanding, we shall take up as our first
example the conceptual pair formed by the words muslim (Muslim)
and kafir (infidel) which stand, as is obvious, in opposition to one
another. If we trace these two Qur’anic key-terms back to the earlier
pre-Islamic stage, we notice that originally they did not even form a
pair. Both words were there certainly, but there was no essential
connection between them. Moreover, neither of them had any
religious connotation, muslim meaning “a man who hands over
something precious to another who demands it of him” and kafir “a
man who does not show gratitude to his benefactor”. It is only at the
second stage of development, that is, within the Qur’anic system, that
the two are put in opposition to one another. In other words, the
Qur’an brings them together for the first time and puts them into one
semantic field, putting muslim on the positive side and kafir on the
negative. This semantic field is that of Tman (belief) which we have
come across earlier.

In this new field, kafir (or, to use the corresponding nominal
form, kufr) stands opposed to Tman contradictorily, while Islam (the
nominal form corresponding to muslim) and Tman are complementary
concepts. Most obviously, emphasis, in the Qur’an, is mainly and
predominantly placed on the contradictory opposition of Tman-Islam
and kufr . And this reflects faithfully the real state of affairs in the
earliest period of Islam, when the Prophet and the small number of
his followers were fighting hard for the establishing of the new
religion and had to wage a fierce war against those who refused to
accept it. It was literally a war between Islam and kufr , between
‘Muslims’ and 'Kafirs'. The situation was such that everybody had
to make a decision as to whether he should choose Islam or kufr.

Only in an important passage, Islam is made to stand in sharp
contrast to Tman and the two are clearly and very consciously
distinguished from each other.

oUV U-Lfj^uX

50 God and Man in the Qur’an

The Bedouins say: “We believe [man].” Tell them: “You do not
believe yet. You should say rather, f We have surrendered 19
[Islam], for the belief [Tman] (in the true sense of the word) has
not yet permeated your hearts ”

Al-Hujurat , 49:14-15.

This is, indeed, a remarkable statement, because here we see
Islam defined in the clearest possible terms as the first step towards
Tman , a preparatory stage at which ‘faith’ has not yet penetrated deep
into the heart. However, we must bear in mind another significant
fact that this definition of Islam was given in explicit reference to the
Bedouins of the desert, whose lukewarm nature in religious matters
is often referred to not only in the Qur’an but also in HadTth. As
regards ordinary Muslims, the Qur’an never makes such a distinction.
Far from being a superficial kind of ‘faith’, Islam , as a spiritual act
of the complete surrendering of one’s self to Divine Will, is regarded
as a supreme religious value.

As a matter of fact, in normal contexts, the two words muslim
(a man of Islam ) and mu ’ min (a man of Tman) are used inter-
changeably, both being used to denote a man who has chosen the
straight way of Divine Guidance (huda) and thereby escaped from the
future punishment of Hell. In more technical terms, we might say that
the two words have exactly the same denotatum although each of
them refers to this same denotatum through a different connotatum.
As our diagram shows, the same concrete individual, say, Hasan, may
be referred to differently as “a man who believes in God” or “a man
who surrendered himself to God”. That is to say, the two words refer
to different conceptual aspects of one and the same person . 20

denotatum connotatum word

In any case, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the
contrast bet Tman and Islam was, at the Qur’anie stage, far less
important and crucial than the sharp opposition in which these two

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

51

concepts as a unit stood to kufr. The opposition muslim(-mu f miri)-
kdfir was one of the burning problems that confronted the nascent
community of Islam.

This fundamental conceptual opposition was carried over just as
it been into the theological system that arose in the post-Qur’anic
period. Now, from the semantical point of view, Islamic theology is,
as we saw earlier, a conceptual system based essentially on the
Qur’anic vocabulary. It inherits from the Qur’an a whole body of
words and concepts. The opposition we are talking about is part of
this conceptual heritage. So nothing changes apparently as regards the
basic pair, muslim-kafir. However, if we examine the matter more
carefully we find that there has occurred a subtle, but clearly obser-
vable shift of emphasis and interest, a change in the fundamental
outlook on the same problem. In other words, the contrast between
muslim and kafir , though outwardly the same, does no longer carry
exactly the same meaning. And this is attributable to the changed
cultural situation in which the Islamic community has found itself.

Islam as a religion has now long been established. Arabia as a
whole embraced this religion; then, immediately following this, the
islamization of the major part of the ancient world of civilizations has
changed the cultural map of the world. Within this well-established
system of Islam, it is naturally no longer necessary to lay so much
stress on the opposition of Muslims as monotheists and kafirs as
polytheists. In place of this old opposition, there appears a new
opposition of concepts, which begins to occupy the attention of the
thinkers.

The rise of the Kharijiyyah , KharijT sect, brings right into the
Islamic sphere of concepts itself the basic contrast between muslim
and kafir. As far as the outward form goes, this contrast remains just
the same, but its inner structure is no longer the same. For the
problem does not fundamentally concern any longer the difference
between the Islamic monotheist and the pagan polytheist or idolater.
It concerns now a distinction within the very confines of Islamic
monotheism, among the very Muslims. For, according to the view
held by the Kharijitcs, a Muslim, once he has committed a grave sin
ceases to be a muslim\ he must be considered a kafir destined for
Nell, and may, therefore, even be justifiably killed. This introduces
into Islam a very dangerous element, because the concept itself of the
"grave sinner” is one of an extremely flexible or mobile nature in the

52

God and Man in the Qur’an

sense that it is susceptible of being extended to any direction so that
it may include anything one does not like. 21 Take, for example, the
famous Hadith preserved by al-Tirmidhf in his Collection of
Authentic Hadith 22 concerning the Qur’anic exegesis, which runs:

.«yf jl’yhl fit

One who interprets the Qur’an according to his personal opinion, that
is, not according to the knowledge, 23 has proved himself by that very
fact to be a kafir .

We can picture from this the gravity of the situation if we
remember that this and similar bitter indictments were made freely
and were even circulated in the name of the Prophet.

(i) (ii)

Islam Idolatry

M= Muslim K= Kafir

(Diagram A)

(0 (ID

Islam Non-Islamic World

M= Muslim K= Kafir

(Diagram H)

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

53

It is quite understandable that such a general state of affairs
came to be reflected in the semantic structure of the word kafir, and,
consequently, of the word muslim. Hitherto these words had been
signs of two fixed categories, and the basic contrast between them
had been somewhat like this (see diagrams on page 52).

In the circle (I) which symbolizes the earlier Islamic community,
every member is a Muslim. And no Muslim can conceivably be a
kafir , as long as he believes in the unity God and recognizes
Muhammad as the Apostle of God. In the Diagram B, the circle (I)
still represents the Islamic community. But we perceive a remarkable
change that has taken place here. Now the concept of kafir has been
brought right into this circle, and muslim and kafir form a sharp
conceptual contrast in the very midst of the Islamic system.
Henceforth a Muslim, that is, one who believes in God and
acknowledges Muhammad as the Apostle of God, may very easily be
turned into a kafir and publicly labeled as such merely by thinking
or acting in this or that way. The concept kafir has lost its denotative
stability and fixedness, and become something mobile, ready to be
applied even to a pious Muslim if he happens to do this or that. Thus
we see that this is not a mere continuation of the Qur’anic contrast
between muslim and kafir, but an essentially new one, in a certain
sense at least, although the two words still keep their basic meaning
and a greater part of their relational meaning as well.

It is implied in the very nature of what we generally call a
‘system’ that, if any important point in it happens to be changed or
moved, reprecussions inevitably make themselves felt in all the
remaining parts of it. The changed relation just described between
muslim and kafir made it incumbent upon the Muslims to take up the
concept of muslim itself, to examine its content more systematically
and to define the word afresh in terms of the new historical and
social situation in which they lived. This may be considered, as
Wensinck 24 has said, an attempt made by the young Muslim
community to define its own position, not against other communities,
but, primarily, for itself. Such was indeed the compelling force of the
age. Further, this must be viewed against background of the
increasing intellectual tendency among the Muslims, which was
remarkably directed towards theoretic and systematic speculation, and
through speculation towards more and more rigorous structural ization
of Islam

54

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

55

It was in accordance with this new intellectual trend that the
problem of the relation between Man and Islam became a matter of
no small concern to Muslim thinkers. The principal problem
regarding Man (belief) was now how its concept was structured, not
so much in contrast to kufr , as it had been case at the Qur’anic stage,
as in itself. The question, in short, was: Of what and how many
conceptual elements was it composed? And the question, conceived
and formulated in this way, necessitated that the answer be given also
analytically. Thus the various answers that were actually given to this
basic question were all strikingly ‘analytic’, in the sense in which
modem semantics understands the word. Al-ShafiT’s famous
definition of Man in terms of three concepts: (1) assent by heart, (2)
public verbal confession, and (3) the observance of religious duties,
was a clear attempt to answer this question through conceptual
analysis. Al-Ash‘an’s no less famous formula is another example,
which makes Man consist of (1) ‘saying’ (qawl) and (2) ‘doing’

( ‘amal).

A great number of different answers were offered in the course
of the development of Islamic theology by different sects and, indeed,
by different individuals. The Murji’ites (murji'ah), for example, held
that Man should properly be defined in terms of ‘knowledge’ — Le.
knowledge of God, excluding thereby ‘doing’, that is, actions, from
the concept of ‘belief. The Karramites ( karrdmiyyah ), to take an
extreme case, took the view that Man should be defined solely in
terms of ‘saying’, that is, verbal confession (al-iqrar bil-lisan). This
definition led to a grave, but extremely interesting, theoretic
consequence. 25

They held that a man who kept kufr (disbelief) secretly in his
heart but professed Man should be considered a mu ' min (believer) in
the real sense of the word, although he was destined to live after-
wards in the Fire eternally, while a man who had real Man in his
heart but did not publicly confess it was not mu ' min , although he was
actualy going to be rewarded in the Hereafter by life of eternity in
the Garden.

Such technical discussions on the structure of the concept of
Man raised inevitably the problem of the exact conceptual relation
between Man and Islam , both of which, as we saw, had meant in the
earlier period practically the same thing. And the concept of Islam ,
loo, was submitted to a semantical analysis.

Here again a number of divergent definitions were offered. But
the commonest type makes Islam consist of what later comes to be
known under the name of the Five Pillars of Islam. The first and
foremost place is occupied by the Man itself; then come salat (ritual
prayer), zakat (alms-giving), sawm (the fast — of Ramadan) and hajj
(pilgrimage to Makkah). In other words, understood in terms of a
hierarchical combination of the concept of Islam is now understood
in terms of the concept of faith with those of the cardinal religious
duties. Semantically this is tantamount to saying that the concept of
Islam now constitutes a small but typical semantic field by itself,
with Man as its focus-word and the remaining four words
surrounding it.

As we have seen above, Islam in the Qur’anic context meant
initially “self-surrendering (to God)”. The corresponding verb aslama
was inchoative; it signified that a man, by this very act of self-
surrender, went into an entirely new phase of life, that something
entirely new started from that moment in his life. This original
connotation became very much obscured, if not completely lost, in
the new conceptual system life. Here we have a clear case of the shift
of emphasis in the structure of word-meaning to which reference was
made earlier.

This kind of semantic elaboration of concepts, with ensuing shift
of emphasis is observable everywhere in the Islamic thought of that
age. Here I will give one more example, which is similar to but
somewhat different from, the case we have just examined. The word
is ( ilm, meaning generally ‘knowledge’.

The basic meaning of this word, to be more exact, is one’s
knowing something about something — ‘knowledge by inference’ as
opposed to and distinguished from ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ in
the terminology of Lord Russell, as we have already seen. As far as
concerns this ‘basic’ meaning, the word stands for one and the same
concept whether it is used in pre-Islamic poetry, the Qur’an, or
theology. But its ‘relational’ meaning differs in an essential point
from system to system. The difference comes from the
conception — which varies from case to case — of the ‘source’ from
which the knowledge is derived. In other words, what matters most
in determining the real concrete semantic structure of the word *ilm
is the question: Where have you derived your knowledge from? It
will be easy to understand this point if wc remember that ‘knowledge

i ft

56

God and Man in the Qur’an

by inference’ is by definition a piece of derived knowledge, that is,
something induced from some given data.

In Jahiliyyah , ' ilm meant primarily a kind of knowledge about
something, derived and induced from one’s own personal experience
of the matter. ‘ Ilm in this sense was opposed to zann , which meant
the result of mere subjective thinking, and, as such, something
groundless and, therefore, unreliable. The following verse by the
famous pre-Islamic poet Tarafah brings out this contrast very clearly:

1 J ^

What he wants to say is this: “I know through experience that
when a near relative (or cousin) of a man has (been allowed to) fall
into an humiliating situation, that would mean no other thing than
that he himself has fallen into such a situation”. And he emphasizes
that this is his ‘knowledge’ ( 'ilm), and not a mere zann . By this he
means that this is an absolutely reliable knowledge because he has
derived it from his own experience, which is quite different from a
piece of groundless thinking with no objective guarantee to support
it.

In the JahilF conception, ' ilm may have its source in something
different from this: tribal tradition. It is a particular kind of know-
ledge that has been handed down from generation to generation in the
tribe, which, therefore, has the tribal authority behind it. In reality,
this is not at all different in nature from the first kind. For it is
nothing other than the result of innumerable pieces of personal
experience by different persons that have been gradually accumulated
through ages and handed down as an immaterial tribal asset. This
latter type of knowledge guaranteed by repeated experiences through
untold ages goes easily beyond the limit of a tribe and tends to
become what we may call a national asset of the Arabs as a whole.
Such knowledge is usually formulated and propagated and handed
down to posterity in the form of proverbs (i amthdl ). Hence the very
great value attached to proverbs in ancient Arabia. And it was part
of the important function of poets to give terse and forcible
expressions to this kind of knowledge.

In conclusion, we may give a brief definition of the word ' ilm
as understood by the pre-Islamic Arabs by saying that it is a sound,
well-grounded piece of knowledge guaranteed by personal or tribal

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History 57

experience which, therefore, can claim an objective and universal
validity.

In the Qur’an, the word becomes a very important religious key-
term. It goes without saying that here I am putting out of consi-
deration ' ilm as: Divine attribute, for that is another problem. Wc arc
concerned now only with ‘ ilm as a human phenomenon. In the
Qur’an 77m is still used in opposition to zann , as well-grounded
knowledge opposed to groundless pseudo-knowledge. So here again
nothing has changed apparently.

Only, we notice that there has occurred a radical change in the
conception of the ground for validity. Tim is, as I have said, an
absolutely reliable piece of knowledge because its validity is fully
guaranteed by something objective because it has been derived from
a good source. Thus far its meaning is the same whether the word
occurs in pre-Islamic poetry or the Qur’an. But the ground, the
source from which it is derived is remarkably different in the two
cases.

In the Qur’an, the word is placed in the new conceptual sphere
of Divine Revelation and associated with other words than those it
used to be associated with in Jahiliyyah', it is now knowledge derived
from the Revelation of God, that is, information given by no other
than God Himself; it has an objective validity because it is based on
the ‘Truth’ ( Haqq ), the Divine Haqq which is the only Reality in the
full sense of the word. Compared with the absolute reliability of this
source, all other sources are essentially and by nature unreliable. And
viewed in this light, the old 77m, i.e., that kind of knowledge that
used to be considered sound and well-grounded in Jahiliyyah because
derived from one’s own personal experience must be degraded to the
lower degree of zann .

Quite a big part of what has once been regarded as well-ground
knowledge in Jahiliyyah must now be considered something essen-
tially groundless: mere fancies and surmises, conjectures. A great
number of Qur’anic verses may be adduced in illustration of this
fundamental change. Here is, one of them:

" ' V "

Of (hat (hey have no certain knowledge ('ilm) They are merely,
conjecturing (zann)

A! Jdihiyah, 45:23 |24

58

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

59

This is said in reference to the Kafirs who stubbornly refuse to
believe in God and the Hereafter, and say emphatically that “There
is nothing but our earthly life. We die, we live, and that is all!", as
if they had an ultimate knowledge about human destiny. In reality,
the Qur'an declares, what they have is not 7/m; it is a mere
conjecture. 26

The Qur’an goes a step further and makes it clear that the
ground or source of zann is hawa , i.e., the natural inclination of the
impulsive and perverse human soul which is by nature blind and
reckless in its behavior, as is well shown by the pre-Islamic usage of
the word hawa in the sense of the blind passion of love. Zann, in this
sense, is often paraphrased in the Qur’an as ittiba' al-ahwa’ 21
meaning literally “the following of one’s own personal caprices”, and
is, in this form, put in opposition to 7/m, which, in such a context,
means, in short, nothing but Divine Guidance, or Revelation.

Nay, but those who do evil (i.e. Kafirs) follow their own
caprices , without knowledge .

Al-Rum , 30:28 [29]

Here the expression bi-ghayri Hlmin (‘without knowledge’) must not
be taken in the simple sense of ‘without knowing’, i.e., ‘uninten-
tionally’. For, according to the Qur’an, the evildoers do what they do
very consciously. The word 77m carries greater weight, and bi-ghayri
‘ilmin means “instead of having recourse to 77m ” — Him being
understood in the sense just explained. The contrast between ittiba. ‘
al-ahwa’ and 77m comes out still more clearly in a verse like the
following:

gr-L; j* ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

If you should follow their caprices (ahwd ’), after the knowledge
(Him) that has come to you, then you would have no protector
against God nor any defender.

Al-Rad, 13:37

Thus there is no room for doubt that the word 77m, when it is
used in the capacity of a key-term in the Qur’an, means the
knowledge derived from the absolutely reliable source, which is
nothing other than Divine Revelation. And the same wprd in the
well-known Qur’anic phrase al-rdsikhuna fl al- Hlmi (“Those who are
firmly rooted in knowledge”), which designates the true believers,
can be understood only in this sense.

This relational meaning which the word has acquired in the
Qur’an is brought into Islamic theology. Here, again, the fundamental
semantic structure shows no change. Only, the conception of the
absolutely reliable source becomes enlarged, because now the
traditions of the Prophet have established the claim to rank with the
Qur’an as another real source of 77m. And this necessarily alters the
whole balance of power in the system. Moreover, we observe here
even a subtle shift of emphasis and interest. That kind of absolute
knowledge based on Divine Revelation, upon whose supreme impor-
tance the Qur’an so emphatically insisted, is no longer a problem for
debate and discussion, as it once was between Muslims and Kafirs.
In the well-established Islamic world, its importance is so self-evident
to be discussed; it is something to be simply taken for granted. The
attention of the Muslims is now drawn mainly towards the nature of
the other source of true 77m, which, although human in nature and
not divine, is, nevertheless, said to be capable of furnishing human
knowledge with something like super-human validity.

Under such intellectual conditions, with the problem of the
validity of HadTth occupying the attention of the thinkers, the word
Him comes to acquire the meaning of a very particular kind of know-
ledge I hat can be traced back by an unbroken and unblemished chain
of authorities to the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions. “On
such and such an occasion the Apostle of God gave such and such an
opinion on such and such a question”. This is 7/m. It is a kind of

60

God and Man in the Qur’an

absolute knowledge, because its source is the Prophet himself, who,
as Imam al-ShafiT pointed out, 28 is mentioned in the Qur’an side by
side with God in the form of “Allah and His Apostle”. Only those
who, in making any statement, base their assertion on this absolutely
reliable authority, are infallible. All others arc but followers of their
own personal ‘caprices’ (■ ahwa '). And any assertion based on hawd
is called ray (personal opinion), meaning an arbitrary, groundless
opinion. It is to be noticed that the word ra y carried in those days
a far greater weight than the simple translation ‘opinion’ would
suggest, because it was directly associated by many people with
downright kufr . It may also be interesting to notice in this connection
that the orthodox school of theology often referred to heterodoxy as
ahl al-ahwa \ lit. ‘people of caprices’.

By this summary history of the word Him through three different
stages — Jdhiliyyah , Qur’an and theology — together, with the conside-
ration that preceded it of the field of Fmdn, islam and kufr , I think I
have illustrated how concepts undergo a gradual and subtle semantic
change each time they are introduced into a new system. So much for
theology.

We shall bring this chapter to an end by discussing in some
detail the nature of the vocabulary of Islamic philosophy so that we
might have an occasion to examine the basic problem we have been
dealing with from a somewhat different point of view.

In opening this new section, will it be necessary to remind the
reader that the motive from which I take up now this subject is not
the desire to talk about Islamic philosophy for its own sake? My real
aim is to explain by a concrete example what I have called the
‘diachronic’ view in semantics, i.e. a comparative examination of the
various conceptual systems that arise in the course of history within
the confines of one and the same language, which, in our particular
case, happens to be Arabic.

Now Arabic, at the apogee of the Abbasid period, becomes an
extremely rich and highly organized cultural language — indeed, one
of the most important among all the cultural languages of the world.
Its richness does not consist merely in the astonishing number of the
words used, but, first and foremost, in the number and complexity of
the conceptual associations, i.e., systems, that they form among
themselves. The philosophical vocabulary is one of them.

The tremendous importance and interest which the rise and

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History 61

development of Islamic philosophy presents to the semanticist lies in
the fact that, semantically, it was a most radical and daring attempt
on the part of the outstanding philosophers to create their own voca-
bulary away from the linguistic authority of the Sacred Book. In fact,
the vocabulary of the philosophers in Islam has one very remarkable
peculiarity which, linguistically, makes it something of an essentially
different nature from all other sister systems, like theology and
jurisprudence, mysticism, etc., that arose in Islam in the post-
Qur’anic period. All these were, from the linguistic point of view,
invariably a natural growth and elaboration of the original genuine
Arabic language, each in a particular direction. Nothing was forced
upon Arabic and its natural resources from outside. Certainly, remar-
kable changes did occur in many places, as we have seen above.
Theology, in particular, was very much influenced by Greek
philosophy in the formation of its linguistic tool. But cases of this
kind were after all, sporadic and were not systematic. On the whole
we might say that the growth of the post-Qur’anic vocabularies was
a result of a spontaneous and natural process of conceptual trans-
formation which was brought about and made necessary by the
changing cultural situation. Philosophy forms the exception.

Only in the case of philosophy, a complete system of foreign
concepts, a very particular conceptual network that had originally
nothing at all to do with the Arabic language and its world-view was
given from outside as the ideal model. And in order to meet the
demand of this stranger, the conceptual network originally existent in
Arabic had to be largely disorganized and reorganized, and many new
concepts that were quite alien to the Arab Weltanschauung were
forcibly introduced. In short, a whole new system of concepts had to
be built up on the Greek model.

Here the Muslim intellectuals learnt new concepts first and then
had to look for suitable words in the Arabic language to symbolize
them. But since the concepts themselves were foreign, there occurred
naturally discrepancies between thought and language everywhere.
Not even one single key-term of Greek philosophy found a perfect
equivalent in the Arabic language, to be very exact. A similar
situation had already occurred when Greek philosophy began to be
transplanted in the Roman world in the Latin language. Cicero
complained of the difficulty of handling Greek concepts in Latin
because ol the immalunly of his language, however rich it was, for

62

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

63

an abstract philosophical thinking. But the distance between Greek
and Latin was both culturally and linguistically almost minimum
when compared with that between Greek and Arabic.

Thus the Arabic language, in this case, had to face suddenly the
overwhelming impact of a foreign thought with a long historical
process behind it, fostered in an entirely different cultural milieu, and
couched in a language which was in many important respects even
diametrically opposed to it. Here Arabic had to abide a most crucial
test in its capacity as a cultural language. And it did stand the test. 29

The result was that there appeared in the Arabic language a very
particular sort of vocabulary — a conceptual system on a grand scale,
based on the semantic principle of what I would call ‘semi-
transparency’. This I shall try to explain in the following.

Let us, to begin with, recall the very fundamental fact that
Arabic is a language which, besides being astonishingly rich in basic
words, shows an amazing capacity in deriving new words out of
given material with a systematic regularity. This rendered it possible
for the philosophers to find — not without difficulty, to be
sure — almost always genuine Arabic words whose ‘basic’ meaning
corresponded at least approximately to the basic meaning conveyed
by the Greek philosophical terms. In such cases, all they had to do
was strip the Arabic words in question of their ‘relational’ elements
that had grown around the ‘basic’ meanings and replace the former,
by means of definition, by the relational ones peculiar to the
corresponding Greek words.

The word ' aql , to take a typical example. This word in pre-
Islamic times roughly meant ‘practical intelligence’ displayed by man
in ever-changing situations. This corresponds to what is called in
modem psychology the problem-solving capacity. A man with ' aql
was a man who, in whatever unexpected situation he was put, could
find by himself some means of solving the problems arising from the
new conditions and find a way out of the danger. Practical intel-
ligence of this kind was greatly admired and highly estimated by the
pre-Islamic Arabs. And no wonder, for otherwise it would have been
impossible to live safely in desert conditions. The famous robber-poet
al-Shanfara uses this word exactly in this sense in the following verse
in which he boasts of his being naturally endowed with such practical
intelligence:

As long as a man keeps his intelligence active (wa-huwa ya ‘qilu) there
can be no embarassing situation in which he may not know what to do
(dTq) whether he be on his way to what he desires or hastening away
from some thing he detests . 30

In the Qur’an, this word, as a key-term, acquires a more
specified religious meaning. There, in contexts of decisive impor-
tance, it is used to mean the intellectual and spiritual capacity of the
human mind, which enables man to understand the ‘signs’ (ayalf x
that God graciously shows to the mankind and to grasp their deep
religious implications.

Making reference, for example, to the rain which God “sends
down from heaven” so that it might give life again to the earth after
its temporary death, it is said:

Verily therein indeed are signs (dyat) for people who keep their
aql active (ya ' qiluna , verbal form corresponding to the noun
'aql).

Al-Rum , 30:23 [24]

Likewise, referring to one of the ancient Cities that were
destroyed by Divine wrath which their inhabitants incurred upon
themselves by their wrongdoings:

OjlflJLi ^ jjjJ Aj!*. LS" y

Verily we have left out of the (City) a clear sign (ayat) for
people who keep their ‘aql active.

Al-‘Ankabiit, 29:34 [35]

Here the mouldering ruins of an ancient city are interpreted as
“a clear sign” of the lash of Divine wrath, a grave warning to those
who refuse to believe in God. Similar examples abound in the
Qur’an.

The same word aql comes into Islamic philosophy, again as one

64

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

65

of its key-terms. But its semantic content, that is, the structure of the
concept symbolized by the word is no longer the same, because the
whole underlying world-view is entirely different, being something
essentially foreign to the traditional Arab one. Whenever we come
across this word actually used in Islamic philosophy as a technical
term, we are strictly required to understand it, not in terms of the
original meaning which it carried before the rise of philosophy as a
genuine, Arabic word, whether in Jahiliyyah or in the Qur’an, but in
terms of the Greek concept of nous in its Aristotelian and neo-
Platonic sense. This is not in any way a natural development of the
pure Arabic concept of 'aql, but something artificial. At least
initially, it was artificial.

The same old word ‘aql is still used, as if nothing changed. In
reality, it has undergone a remarkable change, for the word has been
made ‘transparent’, as it were; we are required to “see through it, and
to read the Greek word nous behind it. Just as in modem times we
have to read behind the Arabic word shuyu ‘iyyah the European word
‘communism’, and behind qawmiyyah (nationalism), so here, too, the
Arabic word ‘ aql must be understood in accordance with the meaning
structure of the Greek word nous, which it has acquired in classical
and Hellenistic philosophy. The word has now a very particular
meaning of ‘intellect’ on a grand cosmic scale covering all the
successive stages of Emanation, from the Universal Intellect which
is the first emanation from the Divine essence down to the human
intellect and reason.

Let it be noticed, however, that this word, as a genuine Arabic
word, carries its own long history on its back, and this weighty past
cannot help making itself felt, to a certain extent at least, whenever
the word is used, even in philosophy. This proves a hindrance to its
acquiring complete transparency. Hence the very peculiar state of
semi-transparency of this kind of words. And it is characteristic of
Islamic philosophy that almost all its key-terms are of this type.
Semantically, Islamic philosophy is a very curious system consisting
of ‘semi-transparent’ words.

The reason why I would call this type of word ‘semi-transparent’
will be made much clearer if we compare words like qaumiyyah,
‘nationalism’ (from qaum, ‘people’ or ‘nation’) and wad'iyyah,
‘positivism’ (from wad', ‘putting’) in ngodcm Arabic with such words
as di m ilq rat iyyah (democracy) and tekfln (telephone) The latter

words are completely transparent; Western words are there palpably
in the most naked form, while words like qaumiyyah and wad'iyyah
mean what they mean only through the intermediacy of genuine
Arabic words, each one of which has its own proper meaning and
history in Arabic language. The word wad'iyyah, for instance, would
mean literally ‘positing-ism’ because wad ‘ means ‘putting’ or
‘positing’, and this much of literal meaning functions as a semantic
bridge between the two words, i.e., wad'iyyah and ‘positivism’; the
point is that, through this middle term, one should be led to the
Western concept itself of ‘positivism’ in a flash, passing over the
bridge as lightly as possible.

In this respect, the contrast, again in modem Arabic, between
telefun and hatif both meaning ‘telephone’, is very interesting and
illuminating. Or as we have just seen, completely ‘transparent’, being
nothing but an arabized form of the word ‘telephone’ itself, and the
other is obviously ‘semi-transparent’. ‘Semi-transparent’ here means
that the word has its own long history behind in the Arabic language
and that this heavy history still tends to make itself felt whenever the
word is used. Hatif in classical Arabic means “somebody whose voice
you hear but whom you do not see anywhere around”. In this we find
the word often used in old Sufi literature in reference to some
mysterious voice calling a future mystic from somewhere in heaven,
urging him to renounce the worldly pleasures and turn to other-
worldliness. The existence of such a weighty past naturally offers a
serious obstacle to the word’s becoming a simple sign of a new idea
introduced from the West only recently. Compared with its rival
telefun, which is ‘transparent’ from the very outset, hatif finds itself
in a very difficult situation because it has to overcome the obstacle
before it can become a perfect Arabic equivalent of the word
‘telephone ’. 32

The problem that concerns us next is that of the degree of semi-
transparency. 'Aql which we have treated above is a typical example
of the case in which semi-transparency was achieved in an ideal way.
But in many other cases the semi-transparency was not achieved so
easily. The word ‘aql as an Arabic equivalent of the Greek nous did
not present any serious problem to the philosophers because the basic
meaning was roughly the same in both languages. Sometimes it so
happened that the Muslim thinkers — or to be more exact, the first
translators from Greek to Arabic starting from a given Greek

66

God and Man in the Qur’an

concept, did not find easily a word, within the Arabic vocabulary,
with a basic meaning which would make it an appropriate equivalent
of the Greek word; the concept of Being is an example in point, to
take by far the most important of all.

As everybody knows Greek philosophy from its very beginning
till its end was consistently and predominantly concerned with the
problem of being and existence. In other words, ontology was the
central preoccupation of the Greek thinkers. Consequently the concept
of being occupied the most important place in their philosophical
thinking. This is particularly conspicuous in Aristotle, who was
admittedly the greatest teacher of the Arabs in this matter.

The Arabs, on the other hand, had traditionally shown no
concern at all with such a problem particularly at such an abstract
level of thinking. Certainlly, even aJahilf Arab knew that things did
exist, including himself, his camels, and other people around him, but
he had never made the ‘existence’ itself of such things a particular
subject for reflexion. Being a matter of no concern, there was no
corresponding concept, and there being no concept, there was no
word to express it.

Speaking in more general terms, we may say that the Arabs as
a whole were a least metaphysical people. The general and the
universal did not attract their attention. Their dominant — and almost
exclusive — concern was with individual, concrete things, or rather,
the concrete aspects of the concrete things. The ancient Arabs seem
to have taken an infinite delight in scrutinizing with a most penet-
rating eye details after details of the concrete things that they saw
around them. Hence the astonishing richness of the Arabic vocabulary
expressing all the observable aspects of all the concrete things. But
they, to all appearance, were lacking in the genius of going in the
opposite direction, i.e., that of going up step by step from the most
concrete individual things and their concrete material aspects to
general and abstract ideas tracing the logical lines of connection
between individual things and abstract ideas. They were funda-
mentally ‘particularists’ in this sense.

Here I cannot resist the temptation to quote a few lines from the
Fajr al-Islam (“Dawn of Islam M ) by the late Prof. Ahmad Amin of
Cairo . 33 In chapter IV of this remarkable book, dealing with the
problem of “The Intellectual Life ofthpAfabs in Pre-lslamic Times”,
he writes as follows:

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

67

The Arabs did not look at the world with a general comprehensive
view, as did the Greeks, for example, the latter, when they began to
philosophize, encompassed the whole world of being with a general
view and put to themselves questions like the following: How did this
world come into existence? The world as I see it is full of changes and
alterations; is not there behind all these changing things one
unchangeable principle?... The whole world as I see it looks like
something essentially one, all the parts of which are connected, with
each other, and which, as a whole, seems to be following some
immutable laws; What, then, is this order? How and from what did it
originate?

These and other similar questions the Greeks put to themselves, and
that was the origin of their philosophical thinking* the very basis of
which was thus a comprehensive view of the world. The Arabs, in
contrast to them, did not look in this direction, and that even after the
advent of Islam. They looked around themselves, and if by chance the
eye caught some particularly interesting sight, they got excited and the
surging emotions would find an outlet for expression in verses or
proverbial sentences...

As to a comprehensive view and a careful analysis of the principles
and properties of the things that excited such emotions their intellect
( ‘aql) found them quite foreign to itself. Moreover, even when an Arab
did look at a thing, it did not usually induce in his mind a deep
reflection on the object; on the contrary, he would merely stop at this
or that particular aspect which aroused his interest. When, for instance
he stood in front of a tree, he would not view it in its entirety: he
would only fix his sight upon some particular point of it, the
straightness of its trunk, for example, the beauty of its branches, etc.
Standing in front of a garden, he would not try to get an extensive of
the whole of it, nor would his mind try to have a photographic grasp
of it. His mind would rather be like a bee flying from flower to flower,
taking sip from every flower.

It is this peculiarity of the Arab mind that explains both the defect
and beauty that you find in Arabic literature, even in that of the later
Islamic ages.

... In short, the Greek mind if it looks at something, looks at it as
a whole, examines it, and analyzes it while the Arab mind goes around
it, and discovers there beautiful pearls of various kinds, which however
arc not strung together into a necklace.

As is easy to see, people of this type make first-rate lyrical
poets, bul are not good by nature for philosophy. This implies also

68

God and Man in the Qur’an

that their language will be at its best in lyrical poetry, and at its worst
in ratiocinative philosophy, for its vocabulary, if left to itself in its
natural state, would not develop abstract concepts that are indis-
pensable for metaphysical thinking.

The concept of Being was one of the most important abstractions
that were lacking in the vocabulary of the Arabs — the abstract
concept of to einai which was a haunting obsession of the Greek
philosophical mind. When it came into the Islamic world, and the
thinkers really felt themselves forced to look for a word in the Arabic
language that might stand appropriately for this concept, two words
offered themselves . 34

One of them was the verb kana ( kawn ). But this was far from
being the exact equivalent of the Greek abstract concept of Being, for
the verb meant basically “to take place” or “come to pass”. There is,
in other words, an important element of ‘becoming’ in the meaning
structure of this word: not pure ‘being’ but ‘being’ as something that
is bom and then goes on growing or changing in course of time:
werden instead of sein, the Germans would say.

So quite naturally the word ends in Islamic philosophy by
becoming rather the Arabic translation of another Greek word genesis
which was used by Aristotle as an important technical term of his
ontology, to designate the concept ‘coming into being’, i.e., the
dynamic process of ‘becoming’ rather than the static idea of ‘being’
pure and simple.

Another candidate was the root WJD, with the basic sense of
‘finding’. This root-meaning, particularly when taken in the passive
sense ‘to be found’ ( wujida ), comes tolerably near to the meaning of
to einai. At least it excludes connotation of ‘becoming’ or ‘coming
into being’; moreover it conveys the sense of something being there
by chance: in other words, of something being there simply existent,
without its being necessary to be there. This last element, which in
philosophical terminology is called ‘contingency’ is something
essential in the conceptual structure of ‘being’ and ‘existence’, except
of course in the only one case of the ‘Necessary Being’ ( wdjib al-
wujud).

In this way the word wujud with the understanding that one
should take it in the passive sense of ‘being found’ came gradually
to be established as the Arabic equivalent of to einai.

However one cannot help feeling that something foreign and

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

69

strange had been forced here upon the Arabic language from outside,
and in fact the word wujud in this philosophical sense remained for
a long time outside the common Arabic usage. This we can see from
the causal remarks made by al-Ghazall in his Maqasid al-Faldsifah 35
to the effect that “it often happens to be difficult to make the word
wujud understood in the strictly philosophical sense so that it is
necessary and desirable from time to time to use a foreign word if
the philosophers want to make themselves quite clear”.

And we see also Ibn Rushd (Averroes) hesitant to use this word
without reserve, for, as he says, it often misleads the readers. The
passive participle of the same verb mawjiid is used in Islamic
philosophy as the Arabic equivalent of the Aristotelian to on (Latin
ens): i.e., ‘being’ in the sense of “something that exists” or an
“individual substance”. But, according to Ibn Rushd, many people,
instead of making the Arabic word mawjud semantically semi-
transparent and reading directly the Greek concept to on behind it, as
they should do, make the word mawjud opaque, so to speak, and tend
to understand it in the sense of “something found”, which is, really,
the basic meaning of this word in Arabic. That is why, he says, the
new abstract noun huwTya, lit. ‘he-ness’ or ‘it-ness’ has been coined,
from the pronoun huwa (he), as a more accurate equivalent for the
Aristotelian subject-substance, i.e., individual substances . 36

It will have been seen from what precedes that a comprehensive
and systematic re-examination of the history of Islamic philosophy
from the particular point of view of semantics is something that will
richly repay the effort. Such a study will not only bring to light a
great many interesting points regarding the details of semantic trans-
formation which individual concepts underwent; it will, further,
contribute much towards letting semantics advance as a cultural
science, i.e., as a really productive tool for research in the scientific
analysis of weltanschauungs . This, however, is mnentioned here only
as a possible future task. It is not necessary — nor is it possible at
all - for present purposes to go into any more details. What I wanted
to do in the last section of this chapter was simply to show, first, that
there can be theoretically such a thing as ‘diachronic’ semantics
which differs in its fundamental attitudes from ‘synchronic’
semantics, but is, at the same time, intimately connected with the
latter, and, secondly, by way of illustration, how Islamic philosophy,
as a conceptual system, had to take great pains in developing its own

70

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

71

vocabulary within the confines of Arabic vocabulary, under the
immediate and ovewhelming influence of an entirely foreign
conceptual system.

Let us now turn to our proper subject: the problem of the
structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung.

Notes

1. This is the main reason why it is so difficult to compile a good
dictionary of present-day Turkish.

2. There is a certain respect in which Prof. Montgomery Watt’s works,
Muhammad at Mecca , Oxford, 1953 and Muhammad at Medina ,
Oxford, 1956, may be rightly regarded as a comprehensive study of
this phenomenon. As one of the most interesting examples we may
mention the very problematic word tazakki , which he discusses from
the philological point of view in Muhammad at Mecca (Excursus D).
He shows there how this word representing the important religious
concept of ‘self-purification’ or ‘being purified’ falls off gradually and
fades out in course of time before another more important word Islam
meaning ‘self-surrendering’.

3. Regarding the significance of this particular vocabulary in the
formation of the Qur’anic language, see, for instance, C. C. Torrey,
The Commercial-Theological Terms of the Qur’an , Leiden, 1892.

4. We must remember that Madlnah at that time was one of the biggest
centre of Judaism.

5. As regards Hanlfs and their language, see later Chapter 4, section V.

6. Except, of course, in the narrower section of the Judeo-Christian
monotheistic ideas. But evidently the Jews and Christians are not in
any way representative of the pre-Islamic Arabia. They are, after all,
a local phenomenon, linguistically at least.

7. In the diagram A, the central area surrounding the word Allah
represents a semantic field consisting of words which stand for various
concepts used in the Qur’anic description of what Allah ‘does’ and ‘is’.
This is what will develop later in Islamic theology into what is known
under the name of ‘Divine attributes’ (sifat Allah).

8. For a detailed consideration of the relation between the purely Jahill
conception of Allah and the Judeo-Christian one, and the influence
which the latter might have exercised' upon the former before the name

of Allah came into the Islamic system, See Chapter 4, which is
exclusively devoted to this very problem.

9. See Chapter 9, section II.

10. Dlwan al-Hamdsah (shark al-Marzuqi % ed. Ahmad Aman and ‘Abd al-
Salam Harun 4 vols., Cairo, 195 1 , Number DCCXLVI, 2, the name of
the poet unknown.

11. See for example, 57:57; 2:263-264 [261-262].

12. See 17:31-32 [29-30]; 25:67.

13. This point has been brought out admirably well by Dr. Daud Rahbar
in his book, God of Justice , Leiden, 1960. See particularly its
introductory chapter.

14. Thelogically, this is the famous problem of ‘Beatific Vision’, which
has been much discussed by the theologians in Islam.

15. Hence the paramount importance attached in the Qur’an to the concept
of dyat. A passing reference to this point has already been made above,
but the problem will be dealt with more systematically in a later
context (Chapter 6).

16. The distinction may be brought out by saying that we know about God,
but we do not know God. In the terminology of Bertrand Russel, Him
is ‘knowledge by inference’ as opposed to and distinguished from
‘knowledge by acquaintance’.

17. Goldziher’s study, Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung ,
Leiden, 1920, may regarded as a good introduction to this problem.

18. Abu Hamid al-Ghazall (or al-Ghazzall), 1059-1111. His Tahafut al -
Falasifah , known in the West as Destructio Philosophorum is a
systematic refutation of Islamic philosophy represented by Avicenna
(Ibn Sina, 980-1037). Besides, his argumentation in this book is
pricipally based on a conceptual analysis. And many passages of it may
be adduced, as they are, even as an illustration of the analytic
technique of modem semantics.

19. Or, “We have become Muslims (formally)”.

20. The Qur’anic connotation of mu ’min, according to the definition given
by the Qur’an itself, is this: a man who has an unwavering faith (man)
in God and His Apostle, never conceives doubt, and is ready to stake
his wealth and life for the cause of God (cf. 49:15). The connotation
of muslim is: he who has surrendered his whole being, soul and body,
to God, and to God alone, absolutely (cf. 2:122 [128]; 125 [131]).

21 . For a brief but illuminating explanation of Kharijite thinking on this
problem, see Montgomery Watt, Islam and the Integration of Society,
London, 1961, pp. 99-102.

22. Sahfh al-Tirmidhf , Cairo, 1950, 11, 157. The hadith here quoted is to
all appearance Npurious, but this gives a better ground for regarding it

73

72 God and Man in the Qur’an

as a faithful reflection of the tendency of the age.

23. Thereby is meant the particular kind of knowledge that can be traced
back by an unbroken chain of truthful transmitters to the Prophet or his
immediate companions.

24. A. J. Wensinck, Muslim Creed , Cambridge, 1932, chapter III.

25. See Imam al-Haramayn, al-Juwaynl: Kitdb al-lrshad , ed. M. Yusuf
Musa and ‘All ‘Abd al-Mun‘im ‘Abd al-Hamld, Cairo, 1950, p. 386.
The Karramites were the followers of Muhammad b. Karra — hence the
name karramiyyah — in the second century of Hijrah who upheld the
principle of extreme anthropomorphism in the interpretation of the
Qur’anic description of God. Imam al-Haramayn himself, by the way,
takes the view that iman means nothing but tasdiq , ‘considering true’
(viz. God and consequently, His Messenger) which is the only
definition possible “linguistically”, as he says. (ibid. 397).

26. This is an extremely important passage disclosing as it does to our eyes
the dark pessimistic mood which underlied the Weltanschauung of the
pre-Islamic Arabs, and which drove many of them, particularly, the
more reflective minds, to a notoriously riotous and dissolute life (cf.
The Structure of the Ethical Terms in the Koran , chapter V). This
passage shows that, from the Qur’anic point of view, the pre-Islamic
pessimism is nothing but a result of zann , and is, therefore, completely
groundless.

27. ahwd ’ pi. of hawd.

28. See his famous Risalah, Cairo, 1940, ed. Ahmad Shakir, for instance.
The entire book may be taken as a clear manifestation of such an
attitude towards this problem.

29. The problem is not only of historical interest. It is also of
contemporary relevance, because present-day Arabic is again faced
with a big problem of a similar nature under the impact of Western
culture, namely, the pressing need of assimilating the key-concepts of
the West and creating a new vocabulary out of old material, a
vocabulary that will be rich enough and flexible enough to cope with
the new situation of the world, and that without overstraining the
natural morphological and lexicological resources of this language. In
fact, all the non- Western nations' are faded with the same problem. And
the problem is, extremely important because it is not a mere matter of
language, but a matter of Weltanschauung , namely, the question of how
we should articulate and interpret the world we live in. It is, in this
sense, a big problem that involves grave cultural issues.

30. Ldmiyyah al-’Arab, v. 4.

3 1 . See chapter 6, section I. .

32. As a matter of fact, the word /iJ/*/ ha^ succeeded in milking itself

Qur’anic Key-Terms in History

‘semi-transparent’ in Syria and Lebanon, where it is currently used in
daily life, but not in Egypt. As regards the more general problem of
the arabization of the Western present-day Egypt, we have an
extremely valuable book by Mr. Mahmud Taymur, Mu ’jam al-Hadarah
(Lexicon of Modern Culture ), Cairo, where almost all the names of
things and ideas belonging to modern civilization that have recently
been introduced into Arab world are classified and examined critically
one by one.

33. Ahmad Amin, Fajr al-Isldm , Cairo, 1955, p. 41-44.

34. See the most lucid exposition of this problem by Mile. Goichon in her
Philosophic d’Avicenne, Paris, 1951, chap. II, to which I am greatly
indebted in what follows.

35. al-Ghazall, Maqdsid al-Falasifah , Cairo, al-Tijariyyah, 2nd ed. 1963,
II, p. 8.

36. Goichon, op. cit. p. 78.

CHAPTER 3

The Basic Structure of the
Qur ’ anic W eltanschauung

I. Preliminary Remark

This chapter aims at giving a bare outline of the basic structure of the
Qur’anic Weltanschauung as a preliminary to a more detailed analysis
of some of the most important semantic fields that will come in the
remaining chapters. Such a total picture is indispensable if we want
to be in a position to assign the appropriate places to the particular
problems that are going to occupy us; regarding the relation between
God and man in the Qur’an. For, as we know already, the proper
position of each individual conceptual field, whether large or small,
will be determined in a definite way only in terms of the multiple
relations all the major fields bear to each other within the total
gestalt.

Furthermore, there is a more immediate reason why we should
begin our work by trying to obtain a general view of the conceptual
scheme of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung. As will have been made
abundantly clear in the preceding two chapters, the semantical
analysis of the Qur’an, in the sense in which we understand it in this
book, does not mean a lexicographical treatment of the whole
Qur’anic vocabulary, z.e., a study of all the words that happen to be
there in the Qur’an, but it means an analytic and systematic study of
only the most important words that seem to play a decisive role in
characterizing the dominant note 1 that runs through, permeates and
dominates the whole Qur’anic thought. Only the important words of
this kind, z.e, the key-words, determine the character of the whole

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 75

system. But in order to be able to measure the importance of the
words and distinguish what is relatively more important from what
is relatively unimportant in this particular sense, we must have
beforehand a general schematic picture of the whole thing. Otherwise,
we would simply end by losing ourselves in the minutiae.

For the purpose of isolating the fundamental conceptual frame-
work of the Qur’an as a whole, the first requirement is that we
should try to read the Book without any preconception. We must, in
other words, try not to read into it thoughts that have been developed
and elaborated by the Muslim thinkers of the post-Qur’anic ages in
their effort to understand and interpret their Sacred Book each accor-
ding to his particular position. We must try to grasp the structure of
the Qur’anic world conception in its original form, that is, as it, was
read and understood by the Prophet’s contemporaries and his imme-
diate followers. Strictly speaking, this must always remain an unattai-
nable ideal, and yet at least we should do our best to approach this
ideal even a step nearer.

Now in reading the Qur’an for this purpose, and as a seman-
ticist, the first and overwhelming impression I get is that this is a
large multi-strata system standing on a number of basic conceptual
oppositions, each one of which constitutes a specific semantic field.
Speaking in terms less semantical, I would say that I get the impre-
ssion that here I am in a world over which reigns an intense atmos-
phere of spiritual strain and tension. What is before our eyes is surely
not a plain, objective description of what has happened, what is
happening and what will happen. This is not a world of calm
peaceful description.

On the contrary, we feel that there is some intense spiritual
drama going on. And a ‘drama’ always occurs only where there is a
dynamic opposition between the principal actors. This is a compli-
cated system of oppositions that are formed, each one of them, by
two poles that stand facing each other. The pole is indicated, seman-
tically, by what we have called a ‘focus-word’. In short, from the
semantical point of view, the Qur’anic Weltanschauung is capable to
be represented as a system built on the principle of conceptual
opposition.

74

76

God and Man in the Qur’an

II. God and Man

The first and most important ‘opposition’ in this sense is constituted
by the fundamental relation between God and man, Allah and insan.
Needles to say, Allah, according to the Qur’an, is not only the
supreme but also the Only Being worthy to be called ‘being’ in the
full sense of the word — Reality with a capital letter — to which
nothing in the whole world can be opposed. Ontologically, the
Qur’anic world is most evidently theocentric, as I have said more
than once. God stands in the very centre of the world of being, and
all other things, human or non-human, are His creatures and are as
such infinitely inferior to Him in the hierarchy of being. There can
be, in this sense, nothing that would stand opposed to Him. And this
is precisely what was meant when it was said above that, seman-
tically, Allah is the highest focus-word in the vocabulary of the
Qur’an, presiding over all the semantic fields and, consequently, the
entire system.

There is, however, a certain respect in which we might feel
ourselves justified in putting the concept of ‘man’ (insan) at the
opposite pole from God. For among all these created things ‘man’ is
the one which is attached so great an importance in the Qur’an that
it attracts at least the same amount of our attention as God. Man, his
nature, conduct, psychology, duties and destiny are, in fact as much
the central preoccupation of the Qur’anic thought as the problem of
God Himself. What God is, says and does, becomes a problem
chiefly, if not exclusively, in connection with the problem with how
man reacts to it. The Qur’anic thought as a whole is concerned with
the problem of the salvation of human beings. If it were not for this
problem, the Book would not have been “sent down”, as the Qur’an
itself explicitly and repeatedly emphasizes. And in this particular
sense, the concept of man is important to such a degree that it forms
the second major pole standing face to face with the principal pole,
that is, the concept of Allah.

And this basic confrontation of the two major poles with each
other constitutes the most important conceptual opposition in the
Qur’an that, together with the others, goes to create that intense
dynamic and dramatic atmosphere of spiritual tension which, as I
have just said, characterizes the Qur’anic Weltanschauung.

Thus, the world of the Qur’an mdy be visualized as a circle with

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 77

two principal points of reference upon it, opposed to each other, one
from above, the other from below (Diagram). And this circle would
symbolize the world of Being as the main stage on which all human
dramas are enacted.

Jahiliyyah did not know such a circle. The world-view of Jahiliyyah
was homocentric. There, man was the sole conceptual pole to which
no other basic pole stood in fundamental opposition. Man, his destiny
on earth, his position in the tribe to which he belonged, the relation
of his tribe to other tribes, his virtues which were essentially tribal in
nature, these were the major problems of a JahilT man. Of course he
recognized the existence of unseen powers superior to himself in the
scale of being, ranging from Allah to Jinn, but these occupied, after
all, a narrow, limited section of the world of his concern; they were
not so important as to constitute an independent major conceptual
principle which would divide this world with ‘man’ into two halves.
There was, consequently, no atmosphere of spiritual tension running
through the whole world of being as a JahilT man conceived it.

Now in the new world of Islam, the dramatic and spiritual
tension to which I have just referred is caused, semantically speaking,
by a particular relation between the two major conceptual poles, i.e.,
God and man. This relation is neither simple nor unilateral; it is a
multiple and bilateral, that is, reciprocal relationship.

This complex relationship may conceptually be analyzed in
terms of four major kinds of relation between God and man. In other
words, the Qur’anic ‘divina commedia ’ is enacted on the main stage
to which reference has just been made in the form of four different
types of relation between Alldh and insan.

I. Ontological relation: between God as the ultimate source of

78

God and Man in the Qur’an

human existence and man as the representative of the world of
being which owes its very existence to God. In more theological
terms, the Creator-creature relation between God and man.

II. Communicative relation : here, God and man are brought into
close correlation with each other — God, of course, taking the
initiative — through mutual communication.

Two different ways of communication are to be distinguished: (1)
verbal type and (2) non-verbal type. The verbal type of commu-
nication from above to below is Revelation ( wahy ) in the narrow and
technical sense, while from below to above, it takes the form of
‘prayer’ ( du‘a ’).

The non-verbal type of communication from above to below is
the Divine act of the sending down ( tanzil) of the ‘signs’ ( ayat ).
From below to above, the communication takes the form of ritual
worship (salat), or more generally, cult practices.

III. Lord-servant relation : this relation involves, on the part of
God, as the Lord (rabb), all concepts relating to His majesty,
sovereignty, absolute power, on the part of man as His ‘servant’

( ‘abd) a whole set of concepts humbleness, modesty, absolute
obedience, and other properties that demanded of a servant. This
human part of the relation has a negative correlative that consists
of the concepts implying haughtiness, arrogance, self-sufficiency
and other similar qualities that are comprised in, and asscoiated
with the word Jahiliyyah.

IV. Ethical relation : this is based on the most basic contrast
between two different aspects that are distinguishable in the very
concept of God, God of infinite goodness, mercy, forgiveness
and benevolence on one hand, and on the other, God of wrath,
and severe, strict and unrelenting justice. Correspondingly, there
occurs, on the human side, the basic contrast between
‘thankfulness’ (shukr) on the one hand, and the ‘god-fearing’,
attitude (taqwa), on the other. As we have seen above, shukr,
and taqwa together form one category and this last makes a
sharp contrast with kufr both in the sense of ‘unthankfulness’
and in that of ‘disbelief. 2

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 79

III. The Muslim Community

These basic relations once established between God and man, they
give birth, midst of mankind at large, to a particular group of men
who acknowledge them and choose the positive side of the matter as
the basis of their outlook on life and existence. What I call here
‘positive’ response consists as regards the first ontological relation,
in their acknowledging God as their Creator, i.e.. One who has
conferred upon man as an extraordinary favour his very existence and
being, and, having given him life, takes care of his destiny. In regard
to the second relation, that of communication, it consists in man’s
responding willingly and wholeheartedly to the divine call and
following its guidance to the way of salvation. In regard to the third
Lord-servant relation, the positive response means that man throws
away from himself all the remants of his former Jahiliyyah and
behaves to God, his Master, as truly befits a slave. Lastly, in regard

I to the ethical relation, it means that he shows ‘thankfulness’ to God’s

favors and — which is in reality nothing but the reverse side of the
same thing — to fear seriously the divine chastisement.

These people form in the nature of the case a compact group, a
religious community. This is the concept of ‘community’ (ummah),
or to be exact, ummah muslimah which originally meant a
“community (of people who have) surrendered (themselves to God)” 3
but ended by acquiring the meaning of the “Muslim community” — to
which the Prophet in the Hadith constantly refers by calling it
ummati (“my community”).

The importance of this concept cannot be too much emphasized.
Its birth marked really a decisive moment in the history of Islam. 4
Hitherto in Arabia, the principle of social and political organization
had been of an essentially tribal nature. The point needs no laboring
because it has been studied so much by so many different authors. In
short, blood-kinship had been the most decisive element in the JahilT
Arab conception of social unity. Against this time-honored concep-
tion, the Qur’an developed a new idea of social unity based no longer
on kinship, but on a common religious belief.

The establishment of this new concept of ‘religious community’
caused naturally a great disturbance in the structure of the semantic
licld of ‘society’. First of all, it created a sharp conflict between the
concept of the Islamic ummah and that of those who definitely and

1

80

God and Man in the Qur’an

openly refused to come into this community, i.e., kuffar, the Kafirs,
the latter category including within it as a subdivision the smaller
category of mundfiqun (hypocrites), who pretended outwardly to
belong in the Muslim community, but, in reality, remained in the
other camp. 5

But there was a far more delicate problem there. The concept of
ummah once established in Islam, the Muslims found that there were
around them all other ‘religious communities’ which had already
been long existent when Islam arose, like Jews, Christians, Sabians,
and Zoroastrians. The Qur’an calls these as a whole “the People of
Scripture” (ahl al-kitab), meaning those who possess a Scripture,
those nations to whom, in each case, a Prophet has been sent, who
has brought them a book of Revelation.

Looking back from this standpoint, the Qur’an divides the whole
mankind before the advent of Islam into two major categories: (1) the
People of Scripture and (2) those to whom the Book has not been
given, people with no Scripture ( ummiyyun ). And these two categ-
ories are sharply opposed to each other. The opposition is clearly
mentioned in several verses; for example:

\y.\

“And say to both those to whom the Book has been given and the
ummiyun...” ( Ali ‘Imran, 3:19 [20]), the context itself makes it clear
that, in this verse, “those to whom the Book has been given” refers
to the Jews and the Christians, while by ummiyun the idolatrous
Arabs are meant.

It is important to notice that the pagan Arabs, before the advent
of Islam are called here, as in many other places, ummiyyun (“non-
Scripture people”). Properly speaking, they are not yet Kafirs ( kuffar
or kafirun), because as yet they have never been admonished to open
their eyes to the marvelous work of God. Real Kafirs are those who
consciously show the most determined opposition to the Divine
scheme, after the Revelation has made the truth clear to them. The
Prophet himself was a pagan, an erring man 6 ( dal l ), before he began
to receive Revelation.

Be this as it may, the fact that in the Qur’anic thought the
concept of ummiyyun is most closely related with (1) that of kitdh
(the Book) that is, in short, Revelation— 'and (2) that of rasiil (the

I

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 81

Messenger) who is charged with the task of transmitting the Book to
his people, and (3) the idea that the people before Revelation are in
the state of dalal (erring), is shown by the following verse:

He it is who has sent among the ummiyyun a Messenger (rasul)
from among them , so that he might recite His revelations to
them, purify them, and teach them the Book (kitdb) and the
Wisdom, while heretofore they were clearly in error (dalal).

All this would seem to imply an extremely important thing,
namely, that, according to the Qur’an, the Arabs, who had been one
of the ummf peoples, were raised by the ‘Arabic’ Revelation for the
first time in their history to the rank of a People of Scripture. The
concept of Islamic ummah is based on this thought. But the idea of
the People of Scripture comprises many communities besides that of
the Muslims, that are parallel to the latter, particularly the Jewish and
Christian communities. And this situation makes it incumbent upon
the youngest ummah to define its own position among the whole
People of Scripture. Thus the idea is advanced that the Muslims are
now “the best ummah ever produced for mankind” 7 and that God has
made them “a middle ummah” , 8 meaning thereby probably an ummah
that occupies the central position in the whole, away from all the
extremes that are represented by other communities within the People
of Scripture.

As a matter of fact, the People of Scripture in pre-Islamic times,
in the Qur’anic view, had conspicuously degenerated. Originally they
were men of the true religion, who, following their prophets, believed
in God and His words. By the time Islam arose, however, they had
consciously falsified the truth that had been revealed to them by God,
adopting some parts of it that pleased them, and rejecting or concea-
ling others. In short, the original pure religion, which the Qur’an calls
the “HanTfitic religion” symbolized by Abraham, the monotheist,
hamf had been corrupted into a kind of disbelief. Islam, according
to what the Qur’an itself declares, was a movement for cleaning up
these religious scandals with a view to reconstructing the true mono-
theism in its pure original form.

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God and Man in the Qur’an

Thus we see that the relation of the Islamic ummah with the
People of Scripture {ahl al-kitab) is far from being a simple and
straightforward one. On the one hand, the Islamic ummah stands
closely affiliated with ahl al-kitab the Jews and Christians in
particular, but, on the other, they are opposed to each other with
bitter enmity between them. And on the whole, this enmity becomes
more and more conspicuous in course of time, and this process is
clearly reflected in the history of the Qur’anic thought. In this sense,
the conceptual opposition of the Islamic ummah and other People of
Scripture is no less sharp than that of the Islamic ummah and the
idolatrous Kafirs. The diagram is intended to show the general
situation of mankind, in the Qur’anic world-view, that resulted from
the establishment of the Islamic ummah, which, again, was a result
of the establishment of the four basic relations between God and the
Arabs through Muhammad the Prophet. It is to be remarked that here
again the whole system is clearly based on the principle of multiple
conceputal opposition.

A= People of Scripture
B = Muslims
C = Hypocrites
D = Kafirs

In the above diagram, the sector marked B symbolizes the
Islamic ummah. It is worth noticing that the inner structure of this
ummah as a social organization based on a new conception of society
became soon a matter of grave concern to the believers who lived
within it. This of course was a phenomenon peculiar to the period
that followed the Hijrah, i.e. the Madman period, when the ummah
first came into being. As everybody knows, the Islamic community,
once established in MadTnah, grew larger at an astonishing speed and
became more and more firmly consolidated in Arabia. This stale of
affairs is reflected in the Qur’an itself, and the problem of t lie inner
slruclure ol'lhe Muslim community is dealt with in great detail in the

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 83

Surahs revealed in MadTnah in terms of the concepts of social system.

These concepts concern the laws and regulations governing the
various human relations within the Islamic community. Unlike most
of the Qur’anic key-terms that have to do with relations between God
and man, the key-terms of this field express primarily relations
between man and man in social life in this world. They constitute a
large semantic field of social system. These concepts may be conve-
niently classified into seven sub-fields: (1) marital relations compri-
sing concepts that relate to marriage, divorce, adultery and forni-
cation; (2) parents-children relations, comprising the duties of parents
towards children, and the duties of children towards their parents, and
regulations concerning adoption; (3) laws of inheritance; (4) criminal
laws concerning particularly murder, theft, and retaliation; (5)
commercial relations comprising concepts of contract, debt, usury,
bribery, and justice in commercial dealings; (6) laws concerning
charity, i.e., alms, legal and voluntary; (7) laws concerning slaves.

As is obvious, this vast network of words signifying various
human relations within the closed community of Islam is destined to
develop later into a grand-scale system of Islamic jurisprudence. And
we could perhaps find the best place for discussing the key-concepts
of this field when we come down, from the Qur’anic stage to the
semantics of the vocabulary of Islamic Law, because there in the
major systems of Law we find all of these concepts minutely
analyzed by the Muslim thinkers themselves in a methodological way
which is not so far removed from our semantical analysis. 10

IV. The Unseen and the Visible

The Qur’anic view divides the present
world in which man lives into two halves:
“the Domain of the Unseen” (‘ alam al-
ghayb ) and “the Domain of the Visible”
("alam al-shahadah). This is the second
major conceptual opposition discernible in
the world-view of the Qur’an. And these
arc the two basic forms of the whole
world of being, which is nothing but the
muin stage on which the aforesaid divina

84

God and Man in the Qur’an

commedia is enacted.

Of these two, only the visible part is at man’s disposal, while
God reigns over both of them, as we are told, for example, in Sarah
al-Zumar:

Say: O Allah! Thou creator of the heavens and the earth! Thou
who biowest the Unseen (al-ghayb) and the Visible (al-
shahadah)!

Al-Zumar, 39:47 [46]

It is to be remarked that this distinction itself is meaningful only
in reference to the basic epistemological capacity of the human mind.
It is, in other words, a distinction made purely from the human point
of view, for, from the standpoint of God, there can be no ghayb at
all. He is omniscient, as the Qur’an declares so categorically and so
repeatedly. “Allah encompasses everything in knowledge”. 11 Thus, to
take a typical example regarding the knowledge of the Hour (al-
so 1 ah ), 12 i.e., the knowledge as to when exactly the Day of Judgment
would come, which was one of the paramount problems of the day
for both the Muslims and the Kafirs, they were told that Allah alone
knew ‘when’, and no one else in the world, not even the Prophet
himself.

itpL»Jt jJ — ) j-b L* j i<dil -UP I g * 1 p ( J — * ipl—Jl fp

Men will ask thee about the Hour. Answer: “The knowledge of
it is with Allah What can make thee know? It may be that the
Hour is nigh.

Al-Ahzab, 33:63

When asked such a grave question concerning the ghayb, the
Prophet should answer only in the following way:

»JlP U-L*l ft 0 ^ U. -ifi' ^

ulp

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 85

“I do not know whether that which you are promised is nigh, 01
whether my Lord will appoint a longer term for it. The K no wet
oj the ghayb He is, and to none does He disclose His ghayb! "

Al-Jinn, 72:26 [26-26]

All this because man is so made to live in the world of the
Visible (shahadah) alone. His knowledge does not go beyond the
limit of his natural domain.

The words themselves, ghayb and shahadah in the sense of “the
invisible” and “the visible” respectively, were not in any way
unknown to the pre-Islamic Arabs. Jahiliyyah knew and used them.
It is remarkable that even the expression ‘alam al-ghayb occurs in a
poem of a famous pre-Islamic poet ‘Antarah b. Shaddad, for
example, in the sense of the “unknown future”: 13

(*Jtp litu* LaJ -IP J jjjj L«_>

Do not worry about what will be measured out to you tomorrow, for
nobody has ever brought us any news from the world of ghayb.

But more generally, the word in JahilT literature means things
that bit beyond the power of human perception in the most material
sense. The following verse by a poet 14 of the Hudhayl tribe describes
a wild bull chased by a hunter, whose presence the former perceives
by the ear, but not by the eye.

4 j jb jb j j^jU) 4 j-

He tries to discern with his eyes what is hidden in the invisible (i.e. in
a place which he is unable to see through), compressing tight his
eyelids, and his eyesight confirms what his ears have heard.

The same word is often used in the sense of “what is hidden in
the heart”, “what is kept secret in the heart”. For example, al-
Hutay’ah says: 15

■ . . ^ 1 ^ 1 - - P f \ 1

“When at lust the real sentiment which had been kept secret in
your heart became disclosed to me...”, meaning thereby the hidden

86

God and Man in the Qur’an

hatred towards him.

But there seems to be no trace in pre-Islamic heathenism of the
word’s having been used in a religious sense. The same is true of its
positive counterpart, shahadah , the basic meaning of which is “to be
present in one’s own person at an event, and be witnessing what
actually happens”. 16

V. The Present World and the Hereafter

From an entirely different point of view, this world as man actually
experiences it and lives in it is, as a whole, called al-dunya , lit. The
Lower’ or ‘the Nearer’ world. The Qur’an mostly uses the phrase al-
hayat al-dunya (‘the lower life’) in place of the simple word al-
dunya . The denotatum of this word in the Qur’an is the same world
of being and existence which we have symbolized above by a circle
with ‘God’ and ‘man’ as two points of reference. In other terms, it
denotes the same main stage of the divina commedia on which God
and man come into contact with each other in the four major types
of relation as distinguished above. Only, the angle from which it is
viewed is now quite different from the preceding one.

To understand this point it will be enough to notice that the
word al-dunya belongs to a particular category of words, which we
might call ‘correlation’ words, that is, those words that stand for
correlated concepts, like ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, ‘brother’ and ‘sister’,
etc. : each member of the pair presupposes the other semantically and
stands on the very basis of this correlation. A man can be a
‘husband’ only in reference to ‘wife’. The concept of ‘husband’, in
other words, implicitly contains that of ‘wife’, and vice versa. In just
the same way, the concept of al-dunya presupposes the concept of the
‘world to come’, f.e, the ‘Hereafter’ {al-dkhirah), and stands in
contrast to it. And the Qur’an is very conscious of this correlation
whenever it uses either of the two words, not to speak of those
frequent cases where both are mentioned together in the same breath,
as, for example, in the following verse:

-U ji dilj LjjJl ^ j jju

You desire the ephemeral goods of the present world (at dunyd).

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 87

while God desires (for you) the Hereafter (al-dkhirah).

Al-Anfdl , 8:68 [67]

The word al-dunya occurs frequently, in pre-Islamic literature.
And this very fact would seem to suggest that the correlate concept
of akhirah was also known to the pre-Islamic Arabs. The famous
authority on pre-Islamic poetry al-Asma‘T (740-828) is often quoted
as saying: “the major subject of ‘Antarah was harb (war), that of
‘Umar b. Abl RabTah was shabab (youth, always associated with
love and the pursuit of sensual pleasures), while the main subject of
Ummayyah b. Abl al-Salt was al-dkhirah (the Hereafter).”

The fact that here the ‘Hereafter’ is put in close connection with
Umayyah b. Abl al-Salt 17 would suggest that this concept, and
consequently that of al-dunya , too, were most probably propagated
in pre-Islamic Arabia first by Judaism and Christianity. To look on
the present world as something ‘lower’ is possible only where there
is firmly established the idea of the Other World being far more
valuable and important than the present world. Such a view is surely
not of the pure Arabian paganism, whose fundamental outlook on
human existence may be aptly described as ‘pessimistic hedonism’
stemming from the deep-seated conviction that there can be
absolutely nothing after death. This typically Jdhilf view of life we
find well epitomized in a verse like this: 18

j* 3 ) h-ji Jl1*j

Let us forget reproachful words of the people with cups abrim, and cut

away the ills of the Day with jest and joy.

It is evident that the disparaging view of the present world, that
is, to look on Dunya as literally dunyd (lower), belongs properly to
a spiritual religion. That such a view of Dunyd was very common in
the Christian circles in and around Arabia in ancient times may be
easily seen by even a cursory inspection of the history of Christian
literature in Arabic. Here I will give a typical example.

The famous princess of the Christian Court of al-HTrah, Hurqah,
daughter of the last king of this dynasty al-Nu‘m5n b. al-Mundhir,
und noted lor her excellent personality as well as for her poetic
talent, is related to have recited a poem which begins with the

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God and Man in the Qur’an

following two lines in the presence of the Muslim general Sa‘d b.
AbT Waqqas, when he defeated the Persians at al-Qadisiyyah: 19

• Ut

ilo 4j *

> ^jLaj

-/I"'-,

The meaning of the verses is somewhat like this:

We have been ruling the people with an absolute authority in our
hands, when, all of a sudden we find ourselves changed into their
subjects who must serve them. Alas, how detestable is the Dunya in
which no happiness lasts for long! The Dunya tosses us about in its
shifts and changes, itself being in perpetual ebb and flow.

However this may be, the word al-dunya itself seems to have
been widely used among the pre-Islamic Arabs even outside the
monotheistic circles, although it is extremely doubtful whether any
religious value was attached to the concept. In the following verse,
for instance, the poet 20 recognizes in the Dunya something inspiring
confidence, worthy to be relied upon, and therefore, positively
valuable.

JST Jjr

Supply yourself for your journey (viz. of life) with the goods of the
Dunya , for, surely, they are, whatever happens, the best provision for
a man preparing for a journey.

There may be in this verse some vague consciousness of the
basic correlation between the Dunya and the Other World still
lingering on, but in the next one by ‘Antarah there is no longer any
trace of such consciousness discernible: 21

.uJti dill ^ ’o' ^

From the excess of passionate love, I lower myself to (my beloved)
‘Ablah (i.e. I content myself with being a “slave” of ‘Ablah), and of
all things of the Dunya I make her the sole concern of mine.

The Basic Structure of the Qur ’anic Weltanschauung 89

As we have seen above, the Qur’an re-establishes this conceptual
correlation in its original form, and puts afresh these two concepts
into direct opposition to each other. And this is the third of the major
conceptual oppositions which, as I said, contribute towards creating
the intense atmosphere of spiritual tension that characterizes the
Weltanschauung of the Qur’an.

As regards the conceptual structure of al-dkhirah itself, we
should remark that it is also based on the principle of dichotomy, i.e.,
here again we see a basic opposition of two major concepts: the
Garden ( al-jannah , pi. alfanndt) and the Hell Fire ( al-jahannam ).
And this determines the general structure of this field. The conception
of the Hereafter in this form does not, in the nature of the case,
appear very often in pre-Islamic poetry, but it would be too rash to
say that it was completely unknown. As a matter of fact, in view of
the cultural situation of Arabia in late Jahiliyyah we should rather
expect to meet with such a conception among the Arabs. There is one
interesting example in ‘Antarah’s Diwdn. Describing his love-affair
with 'Ablah, the poet says:

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God and Man in the Qur’an

The bliss of being united with you is a heavenly garden (jannat)
beautifully adorned, while the fire of being separated from you bums
out everything, leaving nothing behind . 22

It is interesting to note that the poet here compares the unbear-
able torment of separation to the scorching Fire of Hell that bums to
ashes everything that is thrown into it. Although he does not actually
use the word jahannam, ‘Hell’ in this verse, the image is palpably
there. And this, if the verse is genuine, would be indicative of a
strong influence on the pre-Islamic world-view of the Judeo-Christian
religious imagery. Besides, such indications are far from being rare
in pre-Islamic literature.

In any case, the word itself jahannam occurs in the DTwan of the
same poet. This is rather an exceptional case.

a ^ ^ a , s * o

j *jij ^1 -Lj 4

' ' ^ \ * ' -

The taste of the water of life in abjection is like Jahannam, while even
Jahannam, if only one lives there in glory and power, is an abode
sweet and delightful . 23

There is a point which is extremely important as regards the
position of the concepts of jannah and jahannam. This conceptual
pair is not there in the Qur’anic image of the Hereafter simply as
something lying far away from this present world. On the contrary,
it is most directly and immediately connected the human life on this
earth, in this very present world. The two concepts are not only
directly connected with that of al-dunya\ the whole system is
arranged in such a way that they work directly upon the life of the
Dunya and control it in terms of the eternal ‘Reward’ and
‘Punishment’. The presence of jannah and jahannam must make
itself felt in the form of the moral conscience whenever a man does
something, whenever a man acts in this world. It is the very source
of the moral values. Man, as long as he lives as a member of the
Muslim community, is morally demanded to choose always certain
ways of acting that are connected with jannah, and to avoid those
that arc connected with jahannam. This is the very simple and very
vigorous principle of moral conduct in this new community.

The Basic Structure of the Qur ’anic Weltanschauung 9 1

So here again we meet with that phenomenon of the re-
evaluation and reassessment of old concepts in Islam. The concepts
themselves of jannah and jahannam might very well have been
known to the JahilT Arabs, but the position they occupied in the
JahilT conceptual system was quite peripheral, so peripheral that they
were not even key-terms. In the Qur’an, they are given an entirely
different place in an entirely different semantic field. Now they are
key-terms of central importance; they represent in clear imagery the
good and the bad, and the right and the wrong on this earth as God
Himself defines them.

VI. Eschatological Concepts

Between the Dunya and the Hereafter the Qur’an puts something that
acts as a connecting link, something representing the transition stage
between the two worlds (The sector E in the diagram). It is a
particular group of concepts that we may roughly classify as
eschatological concepts: The Last Day, the Day of Judgment,
Resurrection, Reckoning and similar ones.

Of all the concepts that fall under' this category, the most
controversial among the Makkans in the first days of Islam was that
of the resurrection of the dead. Many of them responded with sheer
denial and scorn to the Qur’anic message of the resurrection
connected with the concept of the Judgment of the Last Day. “Who
shall quicken the bones when they have rotted off?” 24 — this brief
sentence summarizes their attitude toward this conception. For them
it was sheer nonsense that they would come to life again in a bodily
form long after they had become decayed bones. Often they
dismissed the teachings as “old fables” 25 and “nightmare illusions”; 26
if such a thing did happen, they said, it would be “nothing but a
magic manifest”. 27

This attitude toward the concept of bodily resurrection has

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God and Man in the Qur’an

The Basic Structure of the Qur ante Weltanschauung 93

evidently its root and source in the more general and more
fundamental world-view of those people to which the Qur’an makes
a clear reference in an oft-quoted passage which runs:

USvLgj j iJjJl UjU>- 1 <

They say : there is nothing but this present life of ours; we die
and we live , and it is only Time that destroys us.

Al-Jdthiyah, 45:23 [24]

Such was, indeed, the typical, representative attitude of the
Makkans on the problem of resurrection raised by the Qur’an in an
uncompromising way. At bottom there is a deep tone of nihilism
here; nihilism coming from the keenest consciousness that there can
be nothing beyond the grave. The same nihilism which, as we have
seen, drove the Arabs of the desert to hedonism, manifested itself
with the Makkans, under the form of an intense and exclusive
concentration on the prosperity in this world. They were, in short,
clever able merchants, worldly-minded businessmen who had no wish
at all to learn about the future life and the Last Day, because in their
eyes there could be no such things. The negative attitude of the
Makkans toward the Qur’anic concept of resurrection can easily be
understood in terms of this businessman mentality. It was the direct
outgrowth of the self-confidence — istighnd \ lit. “the thinking of one’s
self independent” as the Qur’an calls it- — of the prospering merchants.

However, it would be dangerous to generalize it and say that the
concept of resurrection was unknown in Jdhiliyyah . There are certain
undeniable traces in pre-Islamic poetry of a belief in the Hereafter
associated with the idea of the Day of Reckoning beyond the grave.
Some of them may quite reasonably be traced back to a Christian or
Jewish source. The very famous verses (vv. 27-28) in the Mu ‘allaqah
of Zuhayr b. AbT Sulma, in which there is an explicit reference to the
Heavenly Record ( kitab ) which registers all evil actions of men for
the Day of Reckoning (yawm al-hisdb ) furnish an outstanding
example.

I ^ - F + 1 S' ^ ^ ^ j) J ^ ^

Ail ' U* Ail 1

The verses mean literary:

Never try to hide from Allah what is within your breast (i.e. whatever
evil thoughts you nourish secretly) so that it might not be disclosed, for
whatever is concealed from God, He knows. It (i.e. the Divine
punishment) may be deferred and (your evil) set down in the Book and
kept for the Day of Reckoning, or it may be accelerated (i.e. be
inflicted already in the present world) and vengeance taken; (in any
case, you will never be able to escape Divine punishment for any
wrong you have done).

A generation or two ago, it was fashionable among the
Orientalists to explain away these and other similar verses in pre-
lslamic poetry — and the examples are far more numerous than one
might expect — as due to interpolation and forgery by later Muslim
philologists. We have learnt to be much more cautious this matter.
Instead of emphasizing the occurrence of ideas of this kind in
Jdhiliyyah as a strong argument against the authenticity of its
literature, we are today inclined to take it rather as a confirmation of
the view that the intellectual atmosphere of Arabia in late Jdhiliyyah
was not at all purely pagan, but was in general permeated by
monotheistic ideas, for, as we shall see in the next chapter, such ideas
are clearly presupposed by the Qur’an itself in its refutation of the
Kafirs ’ view on Allah.

As regards Zuhayr’s verses just quoted, which, by the way, Ibn
Qutaybah in his Book on Poetry and Poets considers an indication
that this poet believed in the Resurrection, and which modem
scholars have tended to explain away as forgery, I think the truth of
the matter becomes clear when we reflect a little on the general
situation in which Zuhayr composed this poem.

The tribes to whom Zuhayr addressed these words were, as
Charles Lyall 28 pointed out long ago, living in the midst of people
who were well familiar with Christian and Jewish religious ideas. To
the west and north were Yathrib, Khaybar and Tayma’, all flourishing
Jewish centers, to the north the tribe of Kalb, almost entirely
Christian, and Tayyi’ where Christianity was spreading steadily. In
such a cultural situation there is nothing strange about the fact that
some Biblical ideas appear as important concepts in Zuhayr’s poems.

This, of course, should not be taken to mean that the Arabs
before the advent of Islam were, in general and as a whole, already
quite familiar with the major religious concepts of Judco-Christian

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God and Man in the Qur’an

origin. Even those of the Judeo-Christian concepts that were
relatively well-known among the pagan Arabs not evidently form the
genuine JahilT Weltanschauung. The notion of Resurrection enter-
tained by the ordinary Arabs of the desert were also presumably a far
vaguer and weaker one than that expressed by Zuhayr in the lines we
have examined. And yet the presence itself of notions of this kind
among them is also difficult to deny. The evidence is not far to seek.

All readers of the Qur’an know that in this Book the idea of the
resurrection of the dead body is expressed usually by words like
ba 'th (verb ba ‘ atha ) and nashr (verb anshara). In the Qur’an, we
meet with the Kafirs saying:

'■“j *SlJ If* jl I jv'jfr

“ There is only our present life, and we shall never be raised
from (mab ‘uthlna from ba ‘atha)”.

Al-An‘am, 6:29

Gj \zs’y f b]h>

“ There is nothing but our first death; we shall never be raised
from (munsharina from anshara)”.

Al-Dukhan, 44:34 [35]

This negation itself of ba ‘th and nashr would be unthinkable
without supposing that the Kafirs did possess from the beginning the
concepts of ba ‘th and nashr understood in the sense of the
resurrection of the dead. Generally speaking, you can only negate a
word when you know what it means. This view is confirmed by a
similar usage of these words by pre-Islamic Arabs. For example, al-
Shaddakh b. Ya‘mar, a Jahili poet, says: 29

\ Oj gr-j

The poet is here trying to encourage his tribesmen who are
flinching from attacking their powerful enemy, saying that “our
enemies are also ordinary like you, who have hair on their heads, and
who will never be revived (nashr) once they arc killed”. The
expression “they will never be revived” would be completely

The Basic Structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung 95

pointless and meaningless if the concept of nashr (resurrection) were
unknown.

The word hashr is more characteristic, because it means
precisely resurrection on the Day of Judgement. ‘Antarah talks
proudly of his glorious fame as a warrior which will last till the time
of General Assembly. 10 And Salmah al-Ju‘fi, a Mukhadram poet,
bewailing the death of his brother says: 31

Clf /K* 'Ojf* JlS* tS O' J

I used to suffer something like death from even the separation of one
day; can I endure a long separation which comes to an end only by
meeting again on the day of resurrection (hashr)?

We may also point out in this connection a very interesting
heathen custom, baliyyah as something indicative of the existence in
Jdhiliyyah of a belief in resurrection. In the days of Arabian
paganism, when a man died, his riding camel was tied up at his
grave, her eyes plucked out, her fore-shank bound to the upper arm,
and she was left there without food and water till she died. The
custom referred to very often in Arabic literature. An example will
suffice here. 32

Now who will help this miserable fellow, husband of a starving
woman, (lean) as a baliyyah- camel, and clad in rags?

According to the explanation given by the Arab authorities of the
Abbasid period, the pre-Islamic Arabs kept up this old custom
because they believed that the dead man would ride upon his camel
thus starved to death by the grave of her master and come to the
place of Gathering (mahshar) on the Resurrection Day.

Without giving full credit to this kind of explanation, we may be
fairly confident in concluding from what we have seen that the pre-
Islamic Arabs had at least a vague notion of Resurrection and the
Judgment Day. Only, as in the case of all other major religious
concepts, it was not given a definite place in a definite system of
concepts. This und similar concepts were simply there, scattered
about here and there, with no coherent internal connection between

96

God and Man in the Qur’an

The Basic Structure of the Qur ’anic Weltanschauung 97

them. This means that although there were eschatological concepts in
Jahiliyyah, there was no clearly defined and solidly established
semantic field of eschatology as a middle field between the Dunya
and the Hereafter. In any society, there are a number of stray
concepts having no definite semantic field to belong in. Concepts of
this sort, lacking support from any strong coherent systems of
concepts, are weak and cannot in any way play a decisive role in the
culture. This is the most fundamental difference between the pre-
Islamic concepts of eschatology and the Qur’anic ones.

By way of conclusion I would give here in a simple
diagrammatic form the general structure of the Qur’anic
Weltanschauung, to which we have been led by this preliminary
analysis. This furnishes us with a general framework in which every
Qur’anic key-concept will be given a proper place. In the following
chapter only the semantical structure of the first — but patently the
most important — part of this whole system will be dealt with. In
other words, we shall be engaged in examining in detail the structure
of the Dunya in terms of the fourfold relation between God and man,
which we mentioned at the beginning of the present chapter.

Notes

1 *

2 .

3.

4.

5.

6 .
7.

8 .

I quite agree with Dr. Baud Rahbar when he says (op. cit., p. 721) that
“what is expected of a great book of revelation is not absolute logical
consistency, but consistency of the dominance of an idea. Prophets do
not offer philosophy. They offer wisdom of a type, a wisdom which
has a dominant note”. The search after the dominant note in this sense
is our task. Only, this can be done by many different ways and
methods, and semantics is one of them.

As regards these four basic forms of God-man relation, we have to be
content with this synopsis at this stage. We leave the problem here
without any further explanation, for it will form our main topic all
through the remaining chapters. As to the other aspects of the general
Qur’anic world-view, that we are going to mention in the present
chapter, some details will be given in view of the fact that they will
not be dealt with properly in this book.

Our Lord , make us submissive to Thee, and of our seed a community
submissive Thee! (It is Abraham who addresses these words to God)
(Al-Baqarah, 2:122 [128])

The relevance of this concept is in no way restricted to the period we
are dealing witht in this book; it extends into all comers of Islamic
history, as Sir Hamliton A. R. Gibb writes: “The key word for
everything that has to do with Islamic culture is Umma Community. It
is in the historical development of this concept and its modalities that
true significance of Islamic history and culture must be sought”, (“The
Community in Islamic History”, in Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society , Vol. 108, 1963, p. 173)

For an analysis of the concept of religious hypocricy, see The Structure
of the Ethical Terms in the Koran , chapter Xl.

“(God) found thee erring (away from the right
path) and guided thee”. (90:7).

' Uu

You are the best community ever produced for mankind, enjoining the
right and forbidding the wrong, and believing in God. (Ali ‘ Imran ,

3:106 [110])

Likewise We made you a middle ummah , that you might be witnesses
to all people. (ATHaqarah, 2:137 [143]).

98

God and Man in the Qur’an -

On this important term, see the next chapter, section V.

Those who are particularly interested in the Qur’anic concepts of social
system may obtain a general introductory knowledge from The Social
Laws of the. Qur'an by Robert Roberts, London, 1925, although the
investigation is not conducted from a semantical point of view. For a
more detailed survey of the subject, I would recommend Muhammad
Darwaza’s book, al-Dustur al-Qur’am ft Shu ’un al-Haydh , Cairo,
1956.

i a l (65:12)

lb fji, iW aS

y

12. See above, Chapter I, section II.

13. DTwan *. Antarah , p. 83, v. 4.

14. DTwan al-Hudhaliyym , I, Cairo, 1945, p. 1945, p. II, v. 2. The poet is
Abu Dhu’ayb. The word ghayb appears in this verse in the plural form,
ghuyub.

15. Al-Hutay‘ah, zMukhadram poet. al-Majamal-HadTthah, by al-Bustani,
II., p. 37.

16. The contrast between shahadah and ghayb in this sense is most clearly
observable in a verse by a Hudhayl poet Ma‘qil b. Khuwaylid (DTwan
al-Hudhaliyym , III, Cairo, 1950, p. 70, v. 3).

17. On this poet and his singularly monotheistic thought, see the next
chapter, section V.

18. The poet is Iy&s b. al-Aratt, DTwan al-Hamdsah CDLXXXV, 2. It is
quite interesting to note that the same words lahw (jesting, diversion),
and la ' ib (sporting) occur in this combination also in the Qur’an, but
with a completely reversed intention, i.e., the intention of disparaging
the so-called goods of the present world:

The life of the present world is naught but a pastime and diversion.
Surely far better is the Abode of the Hereafter for those who are
godfearing. Do you not understand? ( Al-An ‘am, 6:32). See also 57:19-
20 [ 20 ].

19. Al-Hamdsah , CDXLIX, 1-2.

20. ‘Abld b. al-Abras, DTwan , Beirut, 1958, XV, 28.

21. ‘Antarah, DTwan , p. 168, v. 14.

22. ‘Antarah, DTwan , p. 80, v. 8.

23. Ibid. p. 135, v. 10.

24- (36:28)

25. (83:73)

The Basic Structure of the Qur ' anic Weltanschauung 99

26. (21:5)

27. Ui&J (11:10 [7])

28. Charles Lyall, Ancient Arabian Poetry , London, 1930, in the
explanatory notes on this Mu'allaqah pp. 119-120.

29. DTwan al-Hamdsah, XL, 2. #

30. ‘Antarah, DTwan , p. 80, v. 12 « oljf [^o]»

31. Al-Hamdsah , CCCLXXXV, 3. '

32. The poet is al-Jumayh al-Asadl. DTwan al-Mufaddaliyydt , Cairo, 1942,
CIX, v. 13, p. 368. See also Mu‘allaqah of Harith, v. 14.

CHAPTER 4

Allah

I. The Word Allah , its ‘Basic’ and ‘Relational’ Meanings

As I have pointed out repeatedly in the course of the previous
account, Allah is the highest ‘focus-word’ in the Qur’anic system,
which is surpassed by no other word in rank and importance. The
Weltanschauung of the Qur’an is essentially theocentric, and quite
naturally in this system the concept of Allah reigns over the whole
from above, and exerts a deep influence on the semantic structure of
all the key-words. Whatever aspect of the Qur’anic thought one may
wish to study, it is necessary that one should have from the outset a
•clear idea as to how this concept is structured semantically. This is
why I have decided to devote a whole chapter to a somewhat detailed
analysis of the concept before entering upon the consideration of our
major problem, that of the fourfold relation between God and man.
It goes without saying that the real semantic’ structure of the word
Allah will become fully clear only after we have analyzed this God-
man relation, because, as I said at the beginning of the last chapter,
God in the Qur’anic Weltanschauung does not subsist in His glorious
self-sufficing solitude and stand aloof from mankind as does the God
of Greek philosophy, but deeply involves Himself in human affairs.
Leaving this latter aspect of the problem to the following chapters,
I would like to concentrate on the present chapter on the more
specific subject of the pre-Qur’anic history of the concept of Allah.
This will put us in a better position to see what is original in the
Islamic concept of God, and will thereby serve as a good preliminary

100

Allah 101

to the analysis that will come later of the fundamental relation
between God and man in the Qur’anic thought.

Let us begin by remarking that the name itself of Allah is
common to Jdhiliyyah and Islam. When, in other words, the Qur’anic
Revelation began to use this word, it was not introducing a new name
of God, a name strange and alien to the ears of the contemporary
Arabs. The first problem, then, that we must answer is: Was the
Qur’anic concept of Allah a continuation of the pre-Islamic one, or
did the former represent a complete break with the latter? Were there
some essential — not accidental — ties between the two concepts
signified by one and the same name? Or was it a simple matter of a
common word used for two different objects?

In order to give a satisfactory answer to these initial questions,
we will do well to remember the fact that, when the Qur’an began to
use this name, there immediately arose serious debates among the
Arabs of Makkah. The Qur’anic usage of the word provoked stormy
discussions over the nature of this God between the Muslims and
Kafirs as is most eloquently attested by the Qur’an itself.

What does this mean from the semantical point of view? What
are the implications of the fact that the name of Allah was not only
known to both parties in their discussion but was actually used by
both parties in their discussion with each other? The very fact that the
name of Allah was common to both the pagan Arabs and Muslims,
particularly the fact that it gave rise to much heated discussion about
the concept of God, would seem to suggest conclusively that there
was some common ground of understanding between the two parties.
Otherwise there could have been neither debate nor discussion at all.
And when the Prophet addressed his adversaries in the name of
ARah, he did so simply and solely because he knew that this name
meant something — and something important — to their minds too. If
this were not so, his activity would have been quite pointless in this
respect.

Speaking more generally, a name, i.e., a word, is a symbol of
something; a name is always the name of something. So when a man
addresses another using a particular word and the latter understands
his speech and even gives a retort, we may reasonably suppose that
the name points at least to some conceptual element which is
common to both parties, however much they may differ from each
other in their understanding of the name as regards all other elements.

102

God and Man in the Qur’an

Allah

103

And this common semantic element in our particular case must have
been something referring to an extremely important aspect of the
concept of Allah, seeing that it raised such a keen and crucial issue
among the Arabs of that time.

Now the problem is: What was this common element? We may
answer this question conveniently in terms of the methodological
distinction between ‘basic’ and ‘relational’ meaning. In other words,
the common semantic element of which we are talking now may be
sought for in two different directions

Let us begin with the ‘basic’ side of the matter, keeping well in
mind that the ‘basic’ meaning does not exhaust the common element
in question.

As regards the ‘basic’ meaning of Allah, we may remark that
many Western scholars have compared rightly — to my mind — the
word in its formal aspect with the Greek ho theos which means quite
simply “the God”. On such an abstract level the name was common
to all Arab tribes. In pre-Islamic times each tribe, as a rule, had its
own local god or divinity known by a proper name. So, at first, each
tribe may have meant its own local divinity when it used an expre-
ssion equivalent in meaning to “ the God”; this is quite probable. But
the very fact that people began to designate their own local divinity
by the abstract form of “the God” must have paved the way for the
growth of an abstract notion of God without any localizing qualifi-
cation and then, following this, for a belief in the supreme God
common to all the tribes. We meet with similar instances all over the
world.

Besides, we must remember, there were the Jews and the
Christians with whom the Arabs had constant opportunities of a close
cultural contact. And naturally these Jews and Christians both used
the same word Allah to denote their own Biblical God. This must
have exerted a great influence on the development of the pre-Islamic
concept of Allah among the Arabs towards a higher concept than that
of a mere tribal divinity, not only among the town dwellers but also
among the pure Bedouins of the desert.

However this may be, it is certain from the Qur’an alone, that
by the time Muhammad began to preach, the pagan Arabs had come
to cherish at least a vague idea, and perhaps also a vague belief in
Allah as the highest God standing above the level of local idols.

Thus much we may reasonably assume as the ‘basic’ meaning

of the word Allah in Jahiliyyah. And this much meaning, at least,
must the word have carried into the Islamic system when the Qur’an
began to use it as the name of the God of Islamic Revelation. For
otherwise, as I have said, even a polemic discussion on this Islamic
God could not have been possible between the Muslims and the
Makkan pagans.

However, this is not the whole picture. We would co mmi t a
grave mistake if we imagined that this ‘basic’ meaning was the sole
point of contact between the two conceptions of God. The thing did
not occur in such a way that the pure concept of Allah with its
simple ‘basic’ meaning, which is suggested by its formal
structure — Allah=ho theos — came straight into the Islamic conceptual
system falling down, so to speak, from some metaphysical world of
pure concepts. But actually, i.e. historically, it came into the Islamic
system through another system, namely, the pre-Islamic system of
religious concepts, however crude the latter might have been. Before
the name came into Islam, it had already long been part of the pre-
Islamic system, and a considerably important part, too.

What does this fact imply semantically? It implies before
anything that this word, in addition to its ‘basic’ meaning, had
acquired in the JahilT system a great deal of ‘relational’ meaning
peculiar to the JahilT Weltanschauung. And all these ‘relational’
elements must have been present in the minds of the people of
Makkah who listened to the Qur’anic recitation, at least in the first
period of Muhammad’s prophetic career, because they were still
completely heathen, and were still living in the old traditional JahilT
system of concepts. To put it in another way, when the Islamic
Revelation began, the pagan Arabs of Makkah could possibly have
no other way of understanding the word Allah than by associating
with it all the semantic elements that were already present in their
minds. This was the first big semantic problem which faced the
Prophet Muhammad when he started his prophetic career.

Now the problem is: What were these relational semantic
elements which the word had acquired in the JahilT system? And how
did Islam react to them? Did it reject them altogether as essentially
incompatible with the new conception of God, as one might be
tempted to suppose? All the historical evidence that has come down
to us speaks eloquently against this view. Since Jdhiliyyah and Islam
have always been put in sharp contrast, we are almost instinctively

104

God and Man in the Qur’an

Allah

105

inclined to think that there must have occurred a complete break in
every respect between the two when Islam arose. However, the
Qur’an itself bears abundant testimony to the fact that the matter was
not so simple.

Certainly, of all the ‘relational’ elements that had grown around
the concept of Allah in the system of Jdhiliyyah, Islam found some
quite erroneous, incompatible with its new religious conception, and
it fought strenuously against them and against those who upheld
them. The chief of those objectionable elements was the idea that
Allah, although admittedly the supreme God, allowed the existence
of so-called ‘associates’ ( shuraka ") besides Him.

But apart from this polytheistic element and some other less
important points, the Qur’an acknowledges that the general concept
of Allah entertained by the contemporary Arabs was surprisingly
close to the Islamic concept of God. The Qur’an even wonders in a
number of. important verses why the people who have such a right
understanding of God can be so obstinate in refusing to admit the
truth of the new teaching, as we shall see presently.

In considering the problem of the development among the pre-
Islamic Arabs of the ‘relational’ meaning of the word Allah, I think
it is essential that we should distinguish between three different cases
and examine the matter very carefully from the three different angles.

I. The first is the pagan concept of Allah, which is purely
Arabian — the case in which we see the pre-Islamic Arabs themselves
talking about “Allah” as they understand the word in their own
peculiar way. The interesting point is that pre-Islamic literature is not
the only source of information we have at hand on the subject; full
first-hand information is obtainable from an extremely vivid descrip-
tion of the actual situation given by the Qur’an itself.

II. The case in which we observe the Jews and the Christians of
pre-Islamic times using the very word Allah in referring to their own
God. In this case ‘ Allah ’ means of course the God of the Bible, a
typically monotheistic concept of God. Exceedingly interesting
examples are found in this respect, for instance, in the work of ‘Adi
b. Zayd, a well-known Arab Christian, the Court poet of al-HTrah.

III. Lastly, the case in which we see the pagan Arabs — non-
Christian, non-Jewish pure Jdhilf Arabs — handling the Biblical
concept of God under the name of ‘ Allah ’. This happens, for
instance, when a Bedouin poet findr occasion, as he often docs in

Jdhiliyyah, to compose a poem in praise of a Christian king, his
patron. In such a case, he is using the word 'Allah', consciously or
unconsciously, in the Christian sense and from the Christian point of
view, despite the fact that he himself is a pagan. Quite apart from the
problem as to how deep was the degree of the Arab understanding of
the Christian concept of God in general, it is, I think undeniable that
very often in such cases, particularly when the poet happened to be
a man of keen intellectual curiosity like Nabighah and al-A‘sha al-
Akbar, or a man of a deep religious nature like Labrd, that
considerable effort was exerted on their part, if not consciously and
intentionally, at least unconsciously, to put themselves in a Christian
position temporarily by a sort of empathy. And this empathic attitude,
whether its core was a deep religious emotion or but a superficial
understanding of a foreign belief, must have been powerful enough
to influence the conception of God not only of the poet himself but
more generally of his listeners, and thereby modify, in however slight
and almost imperceptible a degree, the Arab concept of Allah in the
direction of monotheism.

This last case is, as is easy to see, the most interesting and the
most important of the three. But it seems to have escaped the atten-
tion of those who have dealt with the problem of the influence of
Christianity on pre-Islamic Arabia.

In any case, these three different ways of approach seem to have
been gradually moving in the last years of Jdhiliyyah towards a point
of convergence; they were preparing the way for the coming of a
new concept of Allah, that of Islam. It will be well to recall in this
connection that the Arabs in the sixth and seventh centuries were no
longer living in primitive cultural conditions as one might be tempted
to imagine. On the contrary, Arabia at that time was an open stage
of lively cultural contact and international competition between
peoples of ancient civilization, and the Arabs themselves were begin-
ning to take an active part in this competition, as we shall see more
in detail later . 1 Under such conditions, we should rather be greatly
surprised if the concept of God among the Arabs remained just as it
had been in the days of primitive paganism.

To the three cases we have just mentioned we may add one
more case — an extremely special one — which remained to the last
independent of and somewhat aloof from, the others until Islam arose
and brought it suddenly into the brilliant light of history. I am

106 God and Man in the Qur’an

thinking of the concept of Allah peculiar to a very particular group
of men in Jahiliyyah, known under the name HanTfs, and represented
by, in our case, by the poet Umayyah b. AbT al-Salt, who, although
was neither a Jew nor a Christian, held religious ideas that were
strikingly monotheistic in nature, and who must have made in many
ways an important contribution to the permeation of Arabia by
Jewish and Christian ideas. He was indeed an extraordinary figure in
late Jahiliyyah. And the way he used the word Allah is most
interesting from the Islamic point of view.

II. The Concept of Allah in Arabian Paganism

Let us now turn to the first of the four cases as distinguished above,
that is, the autochthonous concept of God in pre-Islamic Arabia. I
would begin by pointing out that even without having recourse to
non-Qur’anic literature, that is, relying solely on the testimony of the
Qur’an itself, we can ascertain the very important fact that not only
did the concept of Allah exist in the religious view of the pre-Islamic
Arabs, but, furthermore, the concept had already a well-developed
inner structure of its own, namely:

1 . Allah in this conception is the Creator of the world.

2. He is the Giver of rain, i.e., more generally, the Giver of life
to all living things on earth.

3. He is the One who presides over the most solemn oaths.

4. He is the object of what we might justly describe as
‘momentary’ or ‘temporary’ monotheism, the existence of
which is evidenced by the recurring expression in the Qur’an
“making (momentarily) their faith pure for Him alone”.

5. Finally, Allah is the Lord of Ka ‘bah.

These five fundamental points are discernible in the structure of
the concept of Allah in the Weltanschauung of Arabian paganism; this
we know by the testimony of the Qur’an. And of course no stronger
testimony could there be on this point. These are, roughly speaking,
the major elements of the relational meaning attached to the word
Allah in Jahiliyyah, that the Qur’an did not find incompatible with its
new religious conception. Here follows a brief explanation of these
points.

Allah

107

As has been casually mentioned in the preceding section, the
concept of Allah that was prevalent among the pre-Islamic Arabs on
the eve of the Islamic era was, in general, surprisingly close in nature
to the Islamic one, so close, indeed, that the Qur’an sometimes even
wonders why such a right understanding of God does not finally lead
the disbelievers to acknowledging the truth of the new teaching.

In Surah al-‘Ankabut, for example, we read:

If you ask them (i.e. the pagan Arabs) “Who has created the
heavens and the earth, and has imposed law and order upon the
sun and the moon?” They will surely answer, “Allah!”.

Al-Ankabut, 29:61

And immediately following this passage.

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J** Crt Jpj*' ^ ^ ot oy Cr* p-pu*

If you ask them “Who sends down rain from the sky and revives
therewith the earth after it has been dead?” They will surely
answer, “Allah!”

Al-Ankabut, 29:63

Apparently, then, Allah was, already in the conception of the
pre-Islamic Arabs the Creator of the world and the Giver of rain, i.e.,
the giver of life to all that exists on earth. The only serious complaint
brought against them by the Qur’an in this respect was that the
pagans failed to draw the only reasonable conclusion from the
acknowledgment of Allah’s being the Creator of the heaven and the
earth: that they should serve Allah alone and none else. The Qur’an
expresses this sentiment by such phrases 2 as “How, then, can they be
turned aside (from the right direction)?” and “But most of them do
not know how to excercise their intellect (i.e. how to draw the right
conclusion)”.

Even of greater interest than this in this respect is the fourth of
the above-mentioned points. It is a singular phenomenon which I
have called ‘temporary monotheism’, and which the Qur’an describes
by a no less singular phrase: "making their religion sincere, or pure,

1 UK

109

CiOD and Man in the Qur’an

for Him, i.e., for Allah alone”.

In many passages of the Qur’an we are told that the pagan
Arabs, when they find themselves in danger of death, with almost no
hope of escape, particularly on the sea, call upon Allah for help and
“make their religion pure for Allah”. Only one example may suffice.

ii an jikr

And when waves enshroud them like dark clouds, they cry unto
Allah, making their faith pure for Him alone.

Luqman, 31:31 [32]

It is indeed remarkable that this expression implies that in an
emergency, when they really felt that their own life was in mortal
danger, the pagan Arabs used to have recourse to ‘temporary mono-
theism’ apparently without any reflection on the grave implication of
such an act. That the phrase “making one’s religion pure for Allah”
in contexts of this kind means what we might call ‘momentary — or
temporary — monotheism’, and not simply ‘sincerity’ or ‘earnestness’
in one’s prayer 3 is clearly shown by the fact that in the majority of
the verses in which this expression is used the Qur’an adds the
remark that these pagans, as soon as they reach the shore and feel
sure of absolute safety, forget about all that has passed and begin
again “to ascribe partners to Allah”, i.e., fall back into their original
polytheism.

yT lil

But when He brings them safe to land, behold, they begin to
ascribe partners.

Al-Ankabut, 29:65

That the Jahill Arabs were prone to neglect the worship of Allah
in ordinary daily conditions, but were always reminded of His name
whenever they found themselves in an unusual and serious situation
is shown also by the fact that, according to the Qur’an, the most
sacred and solemn oaths used to be sworn in Jahiliyyah in the name
of Allah.

Allah

And they swore by Allah their most earnest oath .

Fatir, 35:40 [42] 4

Of particular importance in determining the place occupied by
Allah in the Jahilf system of concepts is the fact that He was consi-
dered the ‘Lord of Ka‘bah’, the highest sanctuary of Central Arabia.
This we can prove by ample evidence from pre-Islamic poetry, but
nothing, of course, can be more decisive and authoritative than the
Qur’an itself. In the very famous Surah Quraysh which is admittedly
one of the oldest pieces of Revelation, the Quraysh are urged strongly
to worship “the Lord of this House”, 5 who causes the two annual
caravans, in winter and summer, to be equipped, and takes good care
of them with a view to making them live in peace and security. Here
the idea of Allah’s being the Lord of Ka’bah is simply taken for
granted as something natural and generally acknowledged. It suggests
that at least the religiously more enlightened ones of the people of
Makkah were conscious of worshipping Allah at this shrine.

Allah, in this particular capacity, was known among the pre-
Islamic Arabs imder the name of the “Lord of the House” ( Rabb al-
Bayt), “Lord of Ka’bah” ( Rabb al-Ka 'bah) or “Lord of Makkah”
( Rabb Makkah). Pre-Islamic literature furnishes ample evidence to
show that the conception of Allah as the Lord of Makkan sanctuary
was exceedingly widespread among the Arabs even outside the
narrow confines of the town of Makkah. Here I give one of the most
interesting examples. The following is a verse by the very famous
pre-Islamic Christian poet of al-Hlrah, ‘Adi b. Zayd. The verse is in
one of his odes which he composed in the prison into which he had
been thrown by the King al-Nu‘man III.

iSCJ l/jj ipt b & V

The poet complains to the king saying that the malignant
slanderers did everything they could do in order to sow discord
between him and the king.

“The enemies tried hard against me”, he says, “without desisting
from doing anything that could harm me, by the Lord of Makkah and

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God and Man in the Qur’an

Allah

111

the Crucified”. 6

In this verse ‘AdT b. Zayd claims his complete innocence and
says that the misunderstanding on the part of the king has been prod-
uced only by the machination of the slanderers envious of his good
fortune, and in order to give special weight to this declaration he
swears by the Lord of Makkah and Christ putting together the two
‘Lords’ into a single oath.

What is important to remember regarding this verse is that the
poet ‘AdT b. Zayd was an Arab Christian, but he was neither a simple
Arab nor an ordinary Christian. He was a man of the highest culture
of his age. He was brought up and educated in a high Persian society
at the time when the Sassanian culture was at its apogee under Kisra
Anushirwan; he occupied a high official position, went to
Constantinople in the capacity of a diplomat, so to speak, when the
Emperor Tiberius II was at the head of Byzantium and came to know
Christianity more deeply at this big center of Christianity. And as an
Arab poet, he was justly regarded as the greatest of the whole tribe
of TamTm.

The fact that this man of highest culture and education put in
one of his solemn oaths, the Lord of Makkah and Christ together is
significant, in my view in two different ways: it is of importance,
first of all, in connection with the problem of the relational meaning
of the word Allah in its purely Arabian aspect. That a highly
educated Christian, not a pagan Arab, living in al-HTrah, away from
Makkah, did use this concept of the Lord of Ka‘bah in this way
shows better than anything else how widespread and influential was
this particular connotation of Allah.

But it is also significant, and perhaps even more significant —
albeit more delicate and subtle — in connection with the second case
as distinguished above, that is, the problem of the purely Christian
conception of Allah that was prevalent among the Arab Christians of
that age.

The example of ‘AdT b. Zayd’s verse would seem to suggest, at
least to my mind, that there was in the Christian psychology an
unconscious tendency or inclination towards identifying their
Christian concept of Allah with the purely pagan Arabian concept of
Allah as the Lord of the Makkan shrine. I would not say a complete
identification, but at least the first step towards it, i.e., a non-
incompatibility between the two. Otherwise the expression would

have been merely a most strange and bizzare combination of ideas.

And if this understanding of mine is right, then perhaps we
might say with some confidence that this kind of attitude on the part
of the Arab Christians must have played an extremely important role
in the development of a lofty and spiritualized concept of God among
the pagan Arabs themselves.

However this may be, we do not have to attach so much
importance exclusively to this very particular problem of the partial
identification of Allah the Lord of Ka‘bah and Allah the Christian
God. More generally, the very fact that the Christians — and the Jews,
for that matter — used the same word Allah in reference to their
Biblical God this fact alone must have been very influential on the
religious development of the conception of the pre-Islamic Arabs,
particularly so in the case of those of the more enlightened type
represented by poets like al-N5bighah, al-A‘sh5 al-Akbar and LabTd,
those Arabs, that is, who although pagan, had a good first-hand
knowledge of the Christians and the Jews, their creed and their
custom, a knowledge they owed to their close personal contact with
them. This last point will be dealt with in more detail a few
paragraphs later. In any case, the verse we have just examined will
serve as an excellent introduction to our next topic which is presented
by the case in which we see the word Allah used by the Jews and
Christians according to their own conception of God.

III. The Jews and the Christians

The main problem of this section need not be dealt with at
length in view of the fact that the general cultural situation of the
Jews and the Christians in Jahiliyyah is a matter of commnon
knowledge among the Orientalists. I shall restrict myself to some
points of direct relevance to the topic of the present chapter. 7

In those days, the Arabs lived surrounded closely by great
Christian powers. Abyssinia, to begin with, was Christian; the
Abysinians were Monophysites. The Byzantine empire, whose high
civilization was greatly admired by the Arabs was of course
Christian. The dynasty of Ghass&i who served as a kind of outpost
in Arabia for the Greek Emperors of Costantinopole was Christian,
from the second king ‘Amr I, famous for having built the monasteries

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God and Man in the Qur’an

Allah

113

of Hall, Ayyub and Hannad, down to the close of the dynasty in A.D.
637, when the last king Jabalah II was dethroned by the Muslim
conquerers. The Ghassanids, too, were Monophysites.

Al-Hlrah on the other hand, which was the Persian vassal-state
and which exercised a great influence on the life and conception of
even the desert Arabs, was, as is well-known, an important center in
East Syrian, i.e., Nestorian Church. And as a result of their direct
contact with these big centers of Christianity, some of the big
nomadic tribes were in the process of Christianization. Furthermore,
as noted above, many of the Arab intellectuals of the age had a
considerable knowledge of Christianity. The great poet al-Nabighah
is an outstanding example. Another great poet of Jahiliyyah, al-A‘sha
al-Akbar had an intimate personal contact with the Bishops of NajrSn,
and his knowledge of Christianity was far from being a superficial
one, as his Diwan shows clearly and conclusively.

It would be a mistake to suppose that the people of Makkah
remained entirely uninfluenced by such a situation, if only for the
reason that they, as professional merchants, travelled on business so
often to these Christian centers. Besides, in Makkah itself, there were
also Christians, not only Christian slaves, but Christians of the clan
of Banu Asad b. ‘Abd al-‘Uzza.

As to the Jews, quite a number of Jewish tribes had settled in
Arabia. Yathrib, Khaybar, Fadak, Tayma’ and Wadi al-Qura being
some of the most important centers settled by immigrant Jews or
Jewish proselytes. And although in Makkah there seems to have been
practically no Jew, the Makkans must have been familiar with some
at least of the basic ideas and concepts of Judaism.

Both the Jews and the Christians in Arabia used Arabic as their
vernacular, and, as I have pointed out earlier, referred to their
Biblical God by the very word Allah, which was something quite
natural seeing that the ‘basic’ meaning conveyed by this word was a
very abstract one that would correspond roughly to the Greek ho
theos. This conceivably provided a good opportunity for the conver-
gence of the two different concepts of God into a certain kind of
unity, albeit a very vague one, in the JahilT minds.

In general, Judeo-Christian religious concepts were, so to speak,
in the air at that time, ready to influence both sides, I mean, both the
JahilT Arabs and the Jews and Christians in their understanding of the
position of each other. This is clcarly^rcflected in many important

traditions. I will take up here one of them as an interesting example.
It is a famous tradition about Waraqah b. Nawfal connected with
Muhammad’s first appearance on the stage of history as Prophet and
Messenger of God. Al-BukharT records it in his chapter on “How
Revelation began to visit the Prophet” 8 in his HadTth collection. The
story runs like this:

When the very first Revelation “Recite in the name of thy Lord
who created” 9 came to the Prophet in a very strange and awe-
inspiring form, the Prophet who had never experienced such a thing
before, naturally got panic-stricken. He lost all self-confidence; he
was uneasy, nervous, and distressed. In short he himself did not know
how he should understand this strange experience.

His wife KhadTjah not only reassured him, but sought stronger
reassurance for him from an authority. This authority was her cousin,
the very famous Waraqah b. Nawfal b. Asad. Here is the text of the
main part of the story as it has been handed down to us by al-
Bukharl:

ji j* J— jj <0 k j>- k>

^ ^ — S" j ,JI j-.

-Lj t 0^"" J t s ijl all I i-Li ^ .4

H d jLii p* Ji\ L d oJlfli

— * ■ * — * j j d i. i j L* aJJ i ^ y* j 15 y

\j J y 4U ' J y cjaJl

; Jli y*- j\ ;a) 1 J y. j Jli* y Jju - jt

£ j-*a , — ii j y — j j lj t* ( JiC. .Ja. j

*

Then she (i.e. KhadTjah) took him to Waraqah b. Nawfal b. Asad b.
‘Abd al-‘Uzza, her cousin. Now this man who, had been converted to
Christianity in the days of paganism was thoroughly conversant with
Hebrew 10 and had made a copy of a considerable portion of the
Evangel in Hebrew. He was at that time a very old man and had
already lost his eyesight. KhadTjah said, “O my cousin, listen to the son
of your brother ”. 11 Waraqah asked him, “Son of my brother, what have
you seen?” Thereupon the Apostle of God told him about what he saw.
Waraqah said, “This is precisely the ndmus that was once sent down
to Mflsfl b. Imran (/ e. Moses). Would that I were young in (your days
of prophclhood)! Would that I might still be alive when your tribe will
expel you!” The Apostle of God asked, “Will they really expel me?”

114

God and Man tn the Qur’an

“Yes”, he replied, “No man ever brought what you have brought now
without being treated as an enemy. If I could live until the day when
you will be expelled, 12 1 should support you with all my might!”

There is no positive reason for doubting the authenticity of this
tradition; on the contrary, the very occurrence of the word namus ,
which is evidently non-Qur’anic, instead of the common Qur’anic
term Tawrat (Torah) argues very strongly for its authenticity and
genuineness. The word namus , which is indeed the pivotal point of
the story, is clearly the Greek word nomos for ‘law’ i.e . the exact
equivalent of the Hebrew Tor a.

In any case, the story tells us that Waraqah who was well-known
for his Christian religion and his good knowledge of Hebrew
scripture, as soon as he heard from Muhammad what had happened
to him, identified this apparently strange experience of Muhammad
as something authentic belonging to the tradition of the Judeo-
Christian monotheism. And this identification, to all appearance, gave
confidence to Muhammad’s mind.

All the preceding consideration would seem to lead us towards
the only reasonable — to my mind at least — conclusion that by the
time Islam arose in Makkah, a considerably lofty conception of Allah
had already been developed among the Arabs, or was developing
gradually, as a converging point of two originally different concepts
of God. On the one hand, the Arabian paganism, had been gradually
developing the concept of Allah, as the Creator of the heaven and the
earth, the Giver of rain which causes the earth to produce all the
good things for the benefit of mankind, the Mighty God who watches
over the sacredness of oaths, the Founder of some of the old religious
customs, 13 and the Great Lord ( Rabb ) having the whole world in his
hand. 14 For this much we have the undeniable testimony of the
Qur’an itself. And there is no cogent reason to deny that all this was
part of the autochthonous religion of Arabian paganism, although this
was evidently only the highest and best part of this religion.

On the other hand, the monotheistic concept of God was
spreading steadily among the Arabs, who, if they did not accept it as
a matter of personal belief and faith, must have been at least well
aware of the existence of some such concept of God among their
neighbors and must have been quite familiar with it.

Allah 115

IV. The Judeo-Christian Concept of Allah
in the Hands of the Pagan Arabs

In the last two sections we have examined, first, the purely pagan
concept of Allah, and then, the Judeo-Christian concept of Allah. We
have seen how these two were gradually tending to converge into one
in the latter years of Jahiliyyah. There was also something very
important which served, as it were a bridge between the two shores.
And with this we turn to the third case as distinguished above,
namely, the case in which the Arabs, that is, the pagan Arabs who
professed neither Christianity nor Judaism, had to talk about the
latter, had to refer in their talk to things pertaining to these
monotheistic religions. And, we might safely surmise seeing the
general cultural situation of the time, such cases must have occurred
not infrequently. Although we have no faithful contemporary records
of what the Arabian people were saying among themselves on these
matters, we find at least some interesting evidence in the work of the
poets, particularly of those who used to compose in praise of their
patrons, whether Christian kings of al-Hlrah or of Ghassan.

And this is even far more important still than those cases in
which we see the Christians and the Jews using the word Allah in
reference to their God, because after all that is, in itself, something
natural, too natural to give us any valuable clue to anything of real
importance.

The case is quite different when, for example, al-Nabighah, a
simple Bedouin poet, in addressing the Christian king of al-Hlrah, al-
Nu‘man b. al-Mundhir, and singing in praise of the latter, uses the
word Allah in this way:

, „ , a ; ^ 9' &

Aj j <ai ' ^ JJ

Allah has completed upon him the best of his favors and let him gain

victory and power over mankind. 15

This LakhmT prince al-Nu‘man, widely known as Abu Qabus,
whose reign fell roughly between 580 A.D. and 602 A.D., was a
Christian who had been brought up in the Christian family of the
very famous Zayd, the father of the poet ‘AdT b. Zayd whom we
have just met So when the poet al-Nabighah uses the word Allah in

116

God and Man in the Qur’an

Allah

117

saying that the king owes his wonderful prosperity, wealth and power
to the great favor of Allah, he must naturally mean the Christian God.
At least this must be his intention.

We have a confirmatory evidence in another verse by the same
poet. Al-Nabighah, having lost the royal favor of al-Nu‘man, went to
Ghassan and was warmly welcomed and honored there by King ‘Amr
b. al-Harith al-Asghar, and began composing panegerics on this new
patron and his family, known today under the name of “Ghassan
encomia ( Ghassaniyyat ). In one of the most famous Ghassaniyyat ,
we find the following two verses that are far more interesting for our
purpose than the one I have just quoted: 16

jj' j ^

0 j-*- jt lli pj j*

(H

Here in praise of the Christian Ghassan he says, “They have a
nature, like of which Allah has never given to any other man, that is,
generosity accompanied by sound judgement that never deserts them.
Their Scripture 17 is that of God (al-Ilah, the original form of Allah),
and their faith is steadfast 18 and their hope is set solely on the world
to come”. 19

This phenomenon is of particular relevance to our present topic
in two important ways.

1. When the poet used the word Allah in this way — and, we
must remember, he did not do it only once, but very frequently —
something must have occurred in his psychology. It may have been,
in the beginning, simply a slight change of nuance or a slight shift of
view-point; in any case, something of no small consequence to his
religious outlook must have been growing in his mind. For it is
difficult to imagine that this way of using the word Allah did not
exercise, unconsciously if not consciously, any influence on his
image of God particularly when it repeated itself so often. And this,
again, may very well have cast its reflection on his conception of
Allah even when he was using the same word in reference to the
non-Christian, purely Arabian God.

2. Equally important is the fact that in Jahiliyyah , the social
position of the poet was very high. The words uttered by a poet,
especially a well-known great poet, were feared, venerated or loved

according to cases as a real spiritual force; and they had all the
weight of a-valuable social, or even sometimes national, asset. Poetry
at that time was not a simple matter of personal expression of
thoughts and emotions. It was a public phenomenon in the full sense
of the word.

Impressive words uttered by a famous poet were propagated
immediately within the tribe and beyond the tribe to the comers of
the Arab world, “flying faster than an arrow” as they said. The poets
were literally leaders of the public opinion.

So the fact that a great poet like al-Nabighah used the word
Allan in the the Christian acceptation, putting himself, at least at that
very moment, in a Christian position by empathy, should not be taken
as a mere matter of personal liking or inclination. On the contrary,
it must have influenced in an indirect unconscious way the religious
outlook of his pagan contemporaries. It must have taught them how
to understand the word Allah in its Biblical acceptation; more impor-
tant still, it must have, further, induced them gradually to identify
almost unconsciously their own pagan concept of God with that of
the Christians.

V. Allah of the Hanlfs

Let us now turn to the fourth and the last variety according to our
classification, i. e . , the conception of Allah peculiar to a group of
people known as Hanlfs, 20 the pre-Islamic monotheists. The word
hamf is an extremely problematic one. Its etymology still remains
obscure, and consequently its ‘basic’ meaning is very hard to define
in a final way. 21 But the problem in itself, however interesting, is of
comparatively small relevance to us as far as concerns our present
topic. What concerns us at this stage is the singularly mono-
theistic — we might almost say, Qur’anic — conception of Allah
entertained by the of this category. Let it suffice to remark that in the
Qur’an the word hamf- — which is used many times, particularly in the
MadTnan Surahs — means ‘monotheist’ in sharp contradistinction to
the ‘polytheists’ or ‘idol-worshippers’ 22 (mushrikun). The word is
associated with the name of Abraham “who was a Hamf and neither
a Jew nor a Christian, one who did not belong to the idol-
worshippers”. M In an important passage, 24 it is declared that this pure

118

God and Man in the Qur’an

monotheistic belief symbolized by the name of Abraham is “the true
religion”, “the natural predisposition (fitrah ) to which God
predisposed (fatara) mankind”.

Among all those pre-Islamic Arabs who are known as Hanlfs
Umayyah b. Abl al-Salt presents an unusually important case, because
he was a very famous poet of the tribe of ThaqTf in Ta’if, and a
considerable number of poems have been handed down to us under
his name. Besides, Islamic Tradition (Hadlth) has also shown a lively
concern for this man, because of his very particular relation with the
Prophet Muhammad, so that his life is known tolerable, well at least
better than any other Hanlfs. He is, in this sense, not a dark mystery,
like other Hanlfs; he is in this sense, not a dark mystery like other
Hanlfs; he stands to a certain degree in the daylight of history.

As regards the poems that have been handed down to us, there
is of course the big problem of genuineness. The problem is parti-
cularly delicate in his case because his words and ideas bear so close
a resemblance to the Qur’anic ones. Many of the poems attributed to
him must be spurious . 25 But even supposing that half of them are
non-genuine, there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of them as
a whole, unless we take the absurd view that all the Muslims who
made reference to this poet from the Prophet Muhammad himself
down to the scholars of the Abbasid age were having a nightmare and
talking in delirium strange things about him that did not correspond
to any historical reality.

Besides, even the forged part must contain a modicum of truth
in it, for in cases like this, one cannot forge without having before
one’s eyes a real model for copying, that is, some reality on which
to base one’s forgery. So even the forged poems must reflect in a
peculiar way the original thought and ideas of this poet.

This man Umayyah b. Abl al-Salt is indeed an extraordinary
figure in the whole JahilT literature. He was one of the leading
personalities of the tribe of ThaqTf, and according to Abu ‘Ubaydah,
the greatest poet of the tribe. In Jdhiliyyah he was said to be in
search of the true monotheistic religion, away from all idol-worship,
but he remained an isolated dissenter without being converted to
Judaism nor to Christianity. And yet the spiritual atmosphere in
which he lived was almost completely Christian and Jewish, parti-
cularly the latter; and the Christian and Jewish elements he
assimilated were mainly of Yemenite origin.

Allah

He is reported to have studied Hebrew and Syriac seriously and
read those parts of the Holy Scripture that were available to him at
that time in these languages; this is partly corroborated by the exis-
tence of a great number of Hebrew and Syriac words in his verses,
which struck the philologists of the Abbasid period as extremely
strange, so much so that, as Ibn Qutaybah says, of all the JahilT poets
he was considered to be the only one whose poems could not be used
as hujjah (evidence) in interpreting the Qur an because of this
defect” i.e. “because of the abundance of strange words” {kalimat
gharlbah) he used.

According to tradition he wore always sack-cloth or coarse hair-
cloth {masuh) as a mark of a man wholly devoted to worship he
was predecessor of the later Sufis in this respect — declared wine to
be unlawful (hardm), called the religion he was in search of din al -
hunafa' (“the religion of Hanlfs”) and associated it with Abraham
(Ibrahim) and Ishmael (IsmaTl).

So far so good. But here begins that aspect of his which induced
the Muslims to call him an “enemy of God” (‘ aduww Allah). He is
said to have been firmly convinced that a ‘prophet’ ( nabiy ) would be
raised among the Arabs, and that he himself would be that person.
According to one tradition he held the view that after Jesus Christ
there would be six appearances of ‘prophethood’ (nubuwwah);
already five occasions had passed and there remained only one and
the last chance, and he was expecting the choice to fall upon him.

Whether this is true or not, when Muhammad appeared as the
Prophet of the Arabs, Umayyah got furiously angry or dissapointed,
or perhaps both, and began his campaign against Islam. He instigated
greatly the Quraysh of Makkah to oppose him, and some poems have
been handed down to us which he composed bewailing the pagans
killed in the battle of Uhud. Among them there were two of his own
maternal cousins, ‘Utbah and Shaybah, and he urged his tribesmen to
take revenge upon Muhammad for their blood. And afterwards, he
flew to Yemen, his spiritual home.

He did not change to the last this inimical attitude towards the
Prophet of Islam, and on his death-bed he is related to have said:
“This illness will inevitably cause my death. I know that the religion
of hanTf is true, but I cannot help entertaining a doubt as regards
Muhammad".

As regards his poems themselves we should say that they dis-

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God and Man in the Qur’an

close a very, strange and even grotesque vision of the universe. Of
course when we look at it from the Islamic point of view, there is
nothing strange and bizarre in his poetic vision, but when we look at
it against the background of the normal mentality of the Jahili Arab,
we understand why even, in his lifetime he was already beginning to
be enshrouded in a cloud of myths and legends. His world is a dark
forest of Jewish imagery; a unique world of Jewish fantasmagoria.

This world is also theocentric. There is One and only one
personal God at the center of this world and He presides over
everything existent. Around the image of this God, whom of course
he calls Allah, there appear before our eyes apocalyptic pictures of
His abode and His kingdom. He is sitting on his Throne 27 “alone and
unique ” 28 enveloped in a dazzling veil of light . 29

No human sight can penetrate through this veil of light and go
up to the Divine Presence. The veil of light is surrounded by the
heavenly host of angels whom he sometimes calls “strengthened
creatures ”, 30 i.e., creatures made strong and powerful by Divine
assistance; they are “arranged in lines”, some of them carrying the
Throne, some of them silently listening to Divine Revelation ; 31
among them Jibnl, i.e. Gabriel and Mikal, i.e., Michael and some
others occupy the highest places.

Then the Biblical stories of creation are told. The present life
which we on earth are living is called dunya and its essential
ephemerality is emphasized: nothing remains for ever; every living
being must sooner or later become worn out and perish 32 except the
only One who remains eternally, the Holy One, possessor of
Majesty . 33

Then comes an exhortation to the true monotheistic religion
which he calls “Hanlfitic religion” {din al-hanifiyyah)', the only right
way for man to take in this transient world is to stop following his
blind desire ( hawaf 4 and to follow the Divine guidance (hudd). iS But,
he says, the human mind is so made that it is naturally inclined
towards “turning away from the truth ” 36 like “a blind man who goes
deviating from the right path ”. 37

The ultimate end of all this is the Last Judgment. And here we
have an abundance of eschatological concepts stemming from the
Bible. Hell and paradise are minutely described. All the sinners are
brought up naked to the place of judgment and arc thrown into the
“ocean of fire ”, 38 bound with long chains and crying “Woe is me!

Allah

121

Woe is me!”, while those who have god-fearing 39 {muttaqumi) arc
richly rewarded with the abode of blissful life, under the cool
shadow of trees.

This is, in broad and simple outlines, the picture of the world
which Umayyah b. AbT al-Salt presents to our imagination. liven
supposing, as I said above, that half of this picture were a forgery yet
the animating spirit of the original Weltanschauung and its consti-
tuents are not at all difficult to grasp through it.

As to the Hanlfitic conception of Allah, we may observe that
according to this poet, He is the “God of the whole world ”, 41 the
“Creator ” 42 of everything and all creatures are “His servants”.

p 0 2 l o- » ' 0 J \ >

_LP* j Lp yb jV> ail 1 ^6

He is Allah, the Creator of everything, and all the created things save

Him willingly as faithful servants . 43

That is to say, He is the Lord {rabb) of His servants.

He is the Great King of the heavens and the earth , 44 who reigns
over his subjects with absolute sovereignty. This majestic aspect ol
Allah is referred to by one of the ‘strange words al-kalimdt cil-
gharlbah, as Ibn Qutaybah called them— that have greatly vexed the
commentators and lexicologists of the Abbasid period. The word in
question is salTtat, originally a Syriac word, which occurs in the oil-
quoted verse:

» , t i> V A

Jaz — • M 3 y JaJa-L-Jl ^ ' UU - j fU}/' JJ

All men are Allah’s subjects; He is the Absolute Sovereign, on earth
Omnipotent . 45

And, most important of all, He is Unique, absolutely One.

J yui d* jiu a J'j *S> jU f

One with whom no one of the creatures ever disputes the kingdom, If

is the One who stands alone without peers, even if His scivants (/.t

men) do not make Him one, (that is, worship besides him other god

and idols)

122

123

God and Man in the Qur’an

Such is his conception of Allah. As far as these points are
concerned, we see that the Hanlfitic conception of God has absolutely
nothing contradictory and incompatible with the Islamic one.

In any case, the very existence in Jdhiliyyah of a man like
Umayyah b. Abl al-Salt would seem to be a striking indication that
religious ideas resembling those of Islam were existent among the
pre-Islamic Arabs, and that concepts characteristic of a spiritual
religion were not at all unknown and alien to their minds, at least in
the period just preceding the rise of Islam. This makes it also
understandable why the Qur’an attached the new Islamic movement
to the Hanlfitic tradition. This is the positive side of the matter.

But it has also a negative side. While the positive side concerns
the similarity between the Hanlfs and the Qur’an, the negative side
relates to the esssential difference between the two. Referring to “the
immense difference” between the Qur’an and the production of
Umayyah b. Abl al-Salt, Sir Hamilton Gibb remarks: 46 “This is the
vibrant moral tone that permeates it. 47 While the poems may echo the
same moral lesson, there is nothing of the urgency and passion of the
Qur’anic presentation. However vivid and sensuous Umayyah’s
descriptions (of Paradise and Hell, for example) may have been, they
do not seem to have had any marked effect upon his fellow-citizens
of Ta’if, let alone the Makkans. Similar materials presumably
circulated among other monotheistic circles and in other parts of
Arabia, of course take their place within the total content of the
Qur’an. But what gave them their effect in their Qur’anic presentation
was that they were linked up with the essential moral core of its
teaching”.

We should remark, too, that the so-called hanifiyyah was not a
strongly organized spiritual group movement. These people stood
each one of them alone and isolated in the pagan society. Their aim
was strictly restricted to personal salvation, and not the salvation of
other people, much less of mankind at large. In short, they were only
isolated, exceptional figures. And in this sense, the religious Weltans-
chauung of Umayyah of which we have just had a glimpse was
presumably much less influential in determining the general atmos-
phere of pagan Arabia than the vague and more general influence
exercised directly by the Christians and the Jews. In any case his
world-view did not represent the dominant note of the Jdhili
spirituality. On the contrary, there is evidence to show that it was

Allah

regarded by the pagan masses as something quite fantastic and
bizarre. This we can see from the way the Makkan people reacted in
general to the monotheism and eschatology of Islam as presented by
the Qur’an.

However it seems to be also certain that the activity of a man
like Umayyah contributed considerably towards making the apoca-
lyptic and eschatological ideas somewhat known to the pagan Arabs,
who, although finding them quite repelling and absurd, must have at
least come to know that there were around them a few queer people

I who entertained such strange ideas.

Keeping in mind the main points we have just examined, let us
go back to the problem that was raised in the first partof this chapter
concerning the way in which the Qur’an presented the Islamic
concept of Allah to the pagan auditors. I think we are now in a
somewhat better position to understand why the Qur’an, whenever it
mentions the name of Allah, does not show any sign of hesitation or
apprehension, any sign, that is, of offering something quite alien and
unknown to the hearers. On the contrary it urges the pagan Arab to
be more strictly consistent in their belief in Allah, and blames them
for being logically so inconsistent. In addition to the examples
already adduced we may quote, for instance:

<.*dJ J jjL** J? j i/'

Say: “Whose is the earth and whoever is in it, if you have the
capacity to understand rightly? ” They will say: “Allah ’s ” Say:
“Will you not then remember? ’’ (i. e. will you still refuse to come
to your senses and awake to the Truth which is already there in
your hearts in a latent form?)

Al-Muminun , 23:86-87 [84-85]

This expression “Will you not then remember?” (a-fa-la
tadhakkaruna ) like a similar one which is also very often used “Will
you not exercise your intellect” (a-fa-la ta'qiliina ), implies, in
contexts of this kind, blaming and reproaching the pagans for being
unable to draw, or perhaps even being unwilling to draw, the final
and most important conclusion about Allah despite the fact that they
have already such a right understanding of His nature.

The next passage is even more explicit on this point.

124

God and Man in the Qur’an

Allah

125

pJjS' j; J^s . j J •— lT -

^0 y (3^ w, dJ O y) y£L~*n wO y^jMj

Say: “In whose hand is the supreme dominion over all things
and He protects while against Him no one can protect anybody ,
if you know?” They will say: “Allah's”. Say: “How then are
you bewitched? ”

Al-Mu’minun , 23:90-91 [88-89]

We should notice this last forcible expression “How then are you
bewitched?”. It expresses suprise at the sight of the people who know
and acknowledge that Allah has in His hand the supreme dominion
over the whole world of being, and yet do not worship Him as He
should be. Their attitude is not understandable unless you suppose
them all to be bewitched.

Such an argument would lose its point completely if we do not
suppose that the Qur’an assumes from the outset in those to whom
Muhammad is to convey the Divine message at least some vague
conception of Allah, which, although quite erroneous in many
essential points from the standpoint of Islam, contains also a number
of good and right elements that are quite acceptable. It is remarkable
that the Qur’an, far from combating the latter, tries to make these
elements more precise and impressive by force of logic.

Notes

1. See Chapter 7.

2. b JG (29:62) 0^ Si % (29:63)

3. Of course this statement does not apply to a verse like the following,
where the expression “making one’s religion sincere” should be taken
in its literal sense.

jij}\ aJ alii i jj * f -

And they were commanded naught else than to serve God, making the
religion pure for Him , as men of pure monotheism ( Al-Bayyinah , 98:4

15]) ‘ ’ ^

4. Also Al-Nahl, 16:40 [38]

5. Al-Quraysh , 106:1-3:

\ IjLk

6. Many people would feel inclined to translate the last word in the verse
salfb as ‘Cross’, not ‘Crucified’ as I have done. I prefer my inter-
pretation because it makes the expression livelier and more colorful in
that it places two different ‘Lords’ — Christ and Allah — side by side. If
we adopt the alternative interpretation, the reference to Christ becomes
slightly less direct and the expression seems to lose thereby the
nakedness, so to speak, and becomes less forcible. In either case,
however, the general meaning remains exactly the same.

7. For a more detailed survey of the whole problem, see, for instance
Carlo Nallino, “Ebrei e Chistiani nell ’ Arabia Preislamica” (Raccolta
di Scritti , vol. Ill), to which I myself am deeply indebted.

8. HadTth No. 3: m «&\ Jl ^ ^ c-b OlS"

9. .q dL j

10. Literally: he could write the Hebrew writing.

11. In addressing her old cousin, she made Muhammad “cousin of
Waraqah” in order to show respect to the latter.

12. Literally: if your day reaches me.

13. 4:139 ff.

14. Al-Mu ’minun, 23:88-91 [86-89].

15. DTwan al-Ndbighah , Beirut, 1953, p. 88, v. 4

16. DTwan p. 16, vv. 2-3.

17. majallatu-hum\ var. mahallatu-hum, “their home is God’s own land”.

18. Or, “their religion {din) is right”.

19. Or, reading khayra instead of ghayra , “what they wish for is the best
of the ultimate end, i.e. Hereafter.”

20. Arabic hanlf pi. hunafa.

2 1 . See Charles Lyall, “The Words Hanlf and Muslim”, Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society , 1903, pp. 771 ff.

22. For instance, 3:60 [67]; 3:89 [95]; 22:32 [31], etc., etc.

23. 30: 29 [30]

24. 2:129 [135]; 3:60 [67]

25. Friedrich Schulthess, “Umajja b. Abi-s-Salt”, Orientalische Studien ,
Theodor Noldeke, Giessen, 1906, vol. I, pp. 71-89. The same scholar
published later a critical edition of the poems attributed to this poet,
1911, Leipzig, from which I draw material for the following desc-
ription of his ideas.

26 ^ Mfr-’L ji ^ IJe'p fl _^»

126

God and Man in the Qur’an

27. vU~J j. .Js* iLL. “the great king sitting on the Throne of Heaven”

28. -L >- y J) p

29. j >1'

30. jA>-

31.

32. ^

33. JtiUrl ^Ui ^ y

34. <>y*

35. e^'

36.

37. l 3 -?* *3'

38.

39. "o ^uli" from taqwa , see Chapter 9, section II.

40.

#

41. ijV’

42. "jJiiLi"

43 . "jLjJi Ly This corresponds to the Lord-servant relation between God
and man, that we are going to discuss in Chapter 8.

44. Olj* — j!

45. Since those who handed down this verse and commented on the word
were not sure even of this form, let alone its meaning, several variants
have come into being: al-silitat UaiLji al-siltit -kjaiLi i . In Ibn
Qutaybah’s al-ShVr wal Shu'ara’ gives al-saltdlit ujU'Vt t

46. Sir Hamilton A. R. Gibb, “Pre-Islamic Monotheism in Arabia”, The
Harvard Theological Review , Vol. LV, Number 4, 1962, p. 280.

47. i.e. the Qur’an.

I

CHAPTER 5

Ontological Relation Between
God and Man

I. The Concept of Creation

In a religious or philosophical Weltanschauung , the being and exis-
tence of man forms as a general rule the major problem. The eternal
and ever recurring question: Where does man come from? What is
the source of his very being here in the world? This is one of those
basic problems that have always disquieted the human mind. In the
Qur’anic conception, the right answer — and the only right one — to
this question is not far to seek: the source of being is God Himself;
existence is conferred upon man by God as a gratuitous gift. In other
words, there is, between God and man, a fundamental relation of
creator and creature in this part of the Qur’anic divina commedia ,
Allah plays the role of the Giver of being and existence to man. He
is the Creator of man, and man is nothing but his creature. Indeed,
Allah is the Creator of the whole world, ranging from the angels
above (40:18 [19]), Jinn (55:14 [15]), the heavens and the earth
(14:22 [19], etc .), the sun and the moon, the day and the night
(41:37, etc), to the mountains and the rivers (13:3, etc.), trees, fruits,
grain and herbs (55:10-11 [11-12], etc.), and all kinds of animals,
“some of them going upon their bellies, some of them going upon
two feet, some, again, going upon four” (24:44 [45]). There will be
no end if we go on enumerating what He has created. He is, in short,
the “Creator of everything”. 1 And man is only one of these created
things, albeit the most important one. In fact, the Qur’an may be
regarded in a certain sense as a grand hymn in honor of Divine

127

128

God and Man in the Qur’an

Creation. At any rate, the whole Qur’an is literally pregnated with the
thought of Creation and a feeling of profound admiration for it.

In the preceding chapter, we have seen that the concept itself of
Divine Creation was not at all unknown to the pre-Islamic Arabs, and
also that this concept seems to have been usually associated with the
name of Allah. This association between ‘creation’ ( khalq ) and
‘Allah’, however, was not always necessarily firm and definite. For
the Qur’an tells us that there were some idol-worshippers who
attributed this power of creation to the idols.

<UJl ^ g ■ 1 t - 4jLjUl3 I yLU- jZ* LJ

Or do they assign to Allah associates who have [allegedly]
created just as He has created, so that the creative activity of
both seems alike to them? Say: “Allah is the Creator of
everything, and He is the One, the Almighty".

Al-Ra ‘d, 13:17 [16]

But this was presumably only an exceptional case. In more
normal cases, creative activity was to all appearance ascribed to the
highest God, Allah. And often, in Jahiliyyah literature, we are
surprised to meet with the concept of Divine Creation which is
exceedingly close to the Qur’anic one — unless, of course, we explain
away all such cases as forgeries and interpolations. In the following
verse, for instance, the concept of creation is associated with that of
‘Lord’ (rabb). The poet is ‘Antarah. 2

O bird, perching on the arak- tree, by a Lord who has created you, you
must surely know where they (i.e. my beloved ones) dwell now.

It is significant that the expression of “a Lord who created a
bird” is here in an oath-formula. 3 Still more Qur’anic is the thought
expressed by the poet in the following verse. 4

IaIiu) lio \j\ Vlilj

Ontological Relation Between God and Man 1 29

Speaking about a girl who has just died, ‘Antarah says, "She
was clinging to (the hope of) a long life. However, the One who
created all living beings has taken her life away to make her return
(to her original state)”.

There seems to have been even the conception of Allah’s having
raised up the sky and established the moon there. In the next
example, the famous JahilT warrior-poet, Ba‘ith b. Suraym al-
YashkurT refers to this idea, again in a solemn oath-formula. He
swears “by the One who has raised up the sky and the moon” that he
will surely take vengeance on his enemy. 5

„ s s S o s S ^ *

I solemnly swear by the One who has raised up the sky to its place and
the moon also, both when it is full in the middle of the month and on
the night when it is a crescent.

Since the testimony given by the Qur’an itself and that afforded
by pre-Islamic literature agree with each other as to the existence of
the concept of creation among the Jahili Arabs, we may be quite sure
about this matter. The problem that must be solved is rather: To what
extent was this concept of Divine Creation influential in determining
the nature of the Weltanschauung of the pre-Islamic Arabs. And when
it comes to this point, we must admit that the concept was, on the
whole, an extremely weak one having little influence on the actual
life of the JahilT Arabs; it does not seem to have affected in any
essential way the conception of human life and existence. In other
words, a JahilT man could very well live on quite comfortably
without having to pay any attention at all to the origin of his own
existence. The significance of this point will be brought home if we
remember, by way of contrast, the fact that the Qur’an urges the
Muslims to be constantly conscious of their essential creatureliness.
A Muslim who lost this sense of creatureliness would by that very
fact cease to be a muslim in the real sense of the word, for, then, he
would have fallen into the grave sin of ‘presumptuousness’ — an
important concept which the Qur’an signifies by words like tughyan
and istighna\ the former meaning roughly “to exceed the (human)
bounds by insolence” und the latter “to feel one’s self completely free
and indepeiulenl (/>. owing nothing to anybody, not even to God)”.

130

God and Man in the Qur’an

Thus the consciousness of creatureliness is linked directly with the
problem of the Lord-servant relation between God and man which we
are to discuss in a later chapter.

So the mere occurrence of words like khalq (creation), khaliq
(creator), bar f (originator) etc. in pre-Islamic literature should not
mislead us into thinking that the concept of Divine Creation was
playing a decisive role in the JahilT Weltanschauung. These and
several other similar words meaning ‘creation’ that gathered around
the name of Allah constituted only a vaguely defined and loosely
delimited semantic field, which itself belonged in a larger field that
consisted of words having reference to the supernatural order of
being. But, we must recall, this semantic field of supernatural beings
occupied in the whole of the pre-Islamic conceptual system only a
narrow and peripheral place. Unlike the Qur’anic system in which
Allah the Creator governs the entire Weltanschauung, Jahiliyyah did
not attach great importance to this semantic field, which, therefore,
did not play any decisive role in the JahilT Weltanschauung. This is
tantamount to saying that the idea of Allah’s being the very ‘source’
of human existence, if it was there, meant very little to the minds of
the pre-Islamic Arabs. And this is why the Qur’an tries so hard to
bring home to them the very significance of this idea and to awaken
them to the grave implication of it.

II. Human Destiny

There seems to be another important reason why the concept of
Divine Creation was such a powerless one in the days of paganism
despite the fact that concept itself did exist, as we have seen, among
the JahilT Arabs. It was a weak concept because the Arabs in pre-
Islamic times were not very much concerned about the problem of
the origin of their being. Their attention, instead of being called to
the ‘beginning’ of life, was predominantly directed toward the ‘end’
of life, that is, Death. In fact, every reader of pre-Islamic literature
will become aware sooner or later that Death was the only subject
that was liable to arouse in the JahilT mind something like
philosophical meditation. The JahilT Arabs who, as we saw earlier,
were by nature a people least inclined to philosophical thinking,
could become philosophers only whcn^thcy were made seriously

Ontological Relation Between God and Man

131

conscious of the inevitability of death. Hence the favorite subject of
pre-Islamic poets: the problem of khulud (the eternal life), the
absolute unattainableness of which they were so painfully aware of,
and which drove them to their characteristic philosophy of life, the
pessimistic nihilism . 6

In any case, whenever a JahilT man was not entirely absorbed in
worldly-affairs, bravery, spoiling and plundering, whenever he found
time to come back to himself and reflect on his life, the first problem
that came to his mind seems to have been that of Death and of the
‘powers’ or ‘causes’ that would bring it to him. This was the problem
of human destiny for the pre-Islamic Arabs. It should be noticed that
in this conception there is not involved the notion of the Hereafter,
while in ordinary cases ‘human destiny’ concerns mainly the problem
of life after death. In the case of the JahilT Arabs, even with regard
to this problem attention is almost exclusively centered on the span
of life on earth in the very present world, with major emphasis placed
on the end of the line; what will come beyond that final point,
whatever, it may be, is of no concern to the JahilT mind. Besides, as
we have seen, for most of the pre-Islamic Arabs there could be
absolutely nothing after the end of the present life. The body, once
buried in the earth, decays and becomes dust while the soul flies
away like the passing wind.

z'ife rbJ) ^ jLiis' Gf jUi ‘Ja

y- r

What are we (if we were not a sort of combination of a body with a
soul?) The body, we go down 7 with it (at our death) under the earth,
while the soul (passes away) just like a gust of wind.

Of all the stages of the life-time of a man, the last stage, i.e..
Death, was, as J have just said, the most important one in the JahilT
conception of human existence. The first stage, that is, the origin and
beginning of his existence, was not very much cared about. But when
it was, it was normally linked up with the concept of creation. We
remarked in the last chapter that the concept of Allah-Creator was
known to the pre-Islamic Arabs. In the JahilT system, too, man was
considered to owe his being and existence to the creative activity of
Allah. But there is here an extremely interesting point to note. Man,
once created by Allah, severes his tics, so to speak, with his Creator,

132

God and Man in the Qur’an

and his existence on earth is, from that time on, put into the hands of
another, far more powerful. Master. And the tyrannical sway of this
Master continues till the very moment of his death, which is nothing
but the culmination of the tyranny and oppression under which he has
been groaning through all his life. The name of this tyrannical
Sovereign is Dahr (Time). In Chapter 3 we have quoted in
connection with a different problem a verse from the Qur’an, in
which this word with precisely this meaning, is put in the mouth of
the Kafirs.

(kffi j O fS $J| liS- ^ ^ £ 1

They say: there is nothing but this present life of ours; we die
and we live, and it is only 'Time ’ (Dahr) that destroys us.

Al-Jathiyah, 45:23 [24]

All5h Dahr

Dahr has various other names: Zaman (Time), ‘Asr (Age),
Ayyam (Days), ‘Awd (Time), but the underlying idea is always
exactly the same. Here I give only a few examples.

‘Awd? ssP'/j ft & tyj

Zaman: 9 3^ *4, > Irk Jj

Zaman: 10 Vi o-?U* [ji

*A.Srfi ' yrz~ " -i 0^ 4- iil-Xi

As regards Dahr itself, it is quite easy for us to isolate its basic
image underlying this concept from any verse in which the word
occurs. The following verse by Ta’abbata Shamran, for example, gives
us the image of a merciless, cold-blooded tyrant against whom not
even the bravest hero can fight:

Ontological Relation Between God and Man

133

JO — i L* fljl— >■ ^ L jliTj j — ■

Dahr has plundered me, the Dahr who is a merciless tyrant, of (a dear
friend of mine) a haughty one who has never allowed his client to be
disgraced, (i.e. let alone himself ). 12

Very frequently Dahr is described as a wild ferocious animal
that bites you with sharp teeth.

y^jJl JU

... for Dahr has hooked teeth (that never quit), ever ready to injure

f J 1 ^ ^ r/ U vQ I iAiaP 1 ill

When Dahr bites you with his dog-teeth in misfortune, bite him back
with all your might as much as he bites you . 14

Thus the pre-Islamic view of human life has at its very center
‘Something’ dark and mysterious that extends its tyrannical sway
over the life process of every individual man from the cradle to the
grave. And this ‘Something’ which roughly corresponds to what we
usually call ‘Fate’, is almost exclusively conceived of as a half-
personal destructive force that not only brings all things to decay but
also causes incessantly all kinds of suffering, misery and misfortune
to human existence all through the span of life. This latter aspect of
manifestation of its destructive activity has a number of particular
names, like suruf (“ suruf of Dahr”), hadathan {hadathan of Dahr),
or hawadith , rayb (“ rayb of Dahr ” or “rayb of Zaman”), etc., all
meaning approximately “unpredictable turns (of Fortune)”; it is
sometimes called metaphorically banat al-dahr (Daughters of Dahr).

-Uuj jj ^ yili( Jf

# * *

. >* * * A

^ LJ y*Jjl

Alter huving seen the death of (my grandfather) the king al-Harith, and
(my lather) llujr the Peerless, who possessed so many mansions, how

134

God and Man rN the Qur’an

could I hope for tenderness from the suruf (turns) of Dahr , which, I
know, never leave untouched even the lofty mountains of massy
rocks ? 15

The Daughters of Dahr have shot at me from a place I cannot see.
What can a man do when he is shot at without being able to shoot
back ? 16

And no one, not even the most valient warrior, the wisest sage,
can escape from the blind and capricious tyranny of Dahr. At the
root of the deep irremediable pessimism of Jahiliyyah lies such a
dark conception of human destiny.

The destructive power of Dahr becomes particularly manifest at
the end of a man’s existence. It is interesting that Dahr then changes
its name and assumes various new names, the commonest among
them being maniyyah (pi. manaya), manun , himam , hummah } 1 In the
following verse from the DTwan of the Hudhayl tribe, two of the
words here mentioned are used side by side, showing that they were
practically synonymous with each other.

9 A 9 9 * * ' ' 9 ^ »

Yes, indeed, Manaya always gains the ultimate victory, and even
talismans are of no use against the destructive power of Himam . 18

These words all mean ‘death’. But they do not simply mean
‘death’, but ‘death’ as the last and most destructive manifestation of
the power of Dahr. So, although in contexts of this kind we find the
word mawt (death) often used in such a way that it might be replaced
freely by one of these words, there is semantically a wide difference
between the two cases. Mawt (death) as a natural — biological, we
might say — phenomenon, while the group words that we are dealing
with here belong to the semantic field of human destiny represented
by the focus-word dahr. They refer, in other words, to the phase of
the Dahr’s rule over a man’s life-time;- they represent the particular
forms which Dahr assumes when it approaches the ultimate goal. It

Ontological Relation Between God and Man

135

is, quite natural that this goal itself should also be often designated
by the same words . 19

As regards this concept of the final point or goal of the Dahr’s
rule, there is other important thing to be noticed. As we have
remarked this final point corresponds, from the biological point of
view, to ‘death’, just as ‘creation’ corresponds to ‘birth’. But this is
not yet the end of the whole story. The final point of the Dahr’s
death rule is capable of being viewed from a somewhat different
angle, that of determinism. And it was in reality a very common view
among the pre-Islamic Arabs.

birth deaih

The conception is that the final point of a man’s span of life is in
each individual case definitely and immutably fixed and determined
beforehand. Everybody, in other words, has an appointed day on
which he has to meet his death. ‘Death’ from this point of view is
called ajal (pi. ajal), ‘the doom’ or ‘the appointed time’.

When that day arrives, anything, however small and weak, can
kill anybody, however strong and powerful he may be. Al-Sa!akah,
mother of the famous pre-Islamic outlaw al-Salfk, says bewailing the
death of her son and consoling herself at the same time : 20

*

Anything indeed can kill you when you meet your own ajal.

It is, as al-Nabighah says in one of his poems on Dahr , 21
something ‘written ( maktub , from kataba, to write)’. And nobody can
put it back by a single day.

‘fj illL > r bli

When I get the arrow of Death [the allusion is to the game of chance,
" kilul 0< ‘ lottery by arrows], I shall never lose my composure, for (of

136

God and Man in the Qur’an

what avail will it be?) Is there anybody at all who can remain alive
beyond (the appointed time )? 22

Whatever you may do, you cannot add even a single hour to
your appointed time, as c Antarah 23 emphasizes in one of his poems:

^ f. j\j» C—via>- L* lij jOj ^ j

Do not flee once you have gone deep into a battle, for flying before
the enemy will never defer your appointed time ( ajal ).

Thus everybody has his own ajal , and every day is a step towards
that fated time. Before the philosophic eye of the Jdhill poet there
unfolds itself a magnificent and tragic panorama of all mankind
marching steadily towards the ultimate end.

3^1 i/js V* Yj o-idk L U

Listen, Harith! There never rises the sun and never does it set but that

the ajal (pi. of ajal) draw nearer the promised time ( mVad)} 4

This is, indeed, a very gloomy view of life, the whole span of
life being conceived of as a series of calamitous events, governed not
by the natural law of growth and decay, but by the inscrutable will
of a dark, blind, semi-personal Being, from whose strong grip there
can be no escape. And only against the background of this tragical
atmosphere can we understand the real historical significance of the
Qur’anic world-view.

In fact, the Qur’an offers an entirely different picture of the
human condition. All of a sudden, the sky clears up, the darkness is
dissipated, and in place of the tragic sense of life there appears a new
bright vista of the eternal life. The difference between the two world-

views on this problem is exactly like the difference between Night
and Day.

In the new Islamic system, too, Allah as the Creator marks the
starting point of human existence. But already here, at the very
outset, we begin to observe a fundamental change. In the old Jahill
system, the creative activity of Allah is both the beginning and the
end of His intervention in human affairs. He does not as a rule take

Ontological Relation Between God and Man 137

care of what He has brought into existence just like an irresponsible
father who never cares for his children; the task is taken over, as wc
have just seen, by another Being called Dahr.

In the Islamic system, on the contrary, creation marks just the
beginning of the Divine rule over the created things. All human
affairs even the minutest and apparently most insignificant details of
life are put under the strict supervision of Allah. And the most
important point about this is that this God, according to the Qur’an,
is the God of justice, who never does any wrong ( zulm ) to anybody.
No more Dahr , nor more secret machinations of Dahr. The very
existence itself of some such thing as Dahr is flatly denied and
dismissed as a mere product of groundless imagination. The whole
course of human life is now placed under the absolute control of the
will of God.

Of course, the problem of death still remains. Death is
inevitable.

P Jj 3 - 1^? jOj

Wherever you may be, death will overtake you, though you hide
yourselves in castles solidly built.

An-Nisa \ 4:80 [78 1

Even the Prophet himself cannot be an exception.

l o-* o*

' *

Never have We assigned immortality to any man before you

(Muhammad). What! if you die, can other people live forever ?

Every soul must taste of death.

Anbiya’, 21:35-36 [34-35 J

This is because Allah has “measured out death to all mankind”. 2 '
Allah “gives life and gives death” 26 as He likes.

The concept of ajal continues to exist in the Islamic system just
as it did in Jahiliyyah. Here, too, ajal is the ‘appointed term’, and,
when applied to the concept of human life, it means nothing other
than ‘death’ as the ultimate term determined by Allah.

138

God and Man in the Qur’an

J*-' J ^ J ^ J* L?iJ'

It is He who has created you from clay , then has determined a
term (ajal). So there is an ajal (for your life) clearly stated with
Him.

Al-An‘dm , 6:2

y* dJ' yi jf ois^

^ -- * *

No soul ever dies except by the permission of Allah, at a term
clearly dated (in the knowledge of God). 11

Ali ‘Imran, 3:139 [145]

The inevitability of death in the form of ajal, however, does not
lead, in the Islamic conception, as it used to do in Jahiliyyah, to a
gloomy pessimistic view of human existence, because the ajal in this
sense is not, in the new Weltanschauung, the real terminal point of
existence. It is, on the contrary, the very threshold of a new and
entirely different kind of life — the eternal life ( khulud ). In this
system, the ajal, i.e. death, of each individual man is but a middle
stage in the whole length of his life, a turning-point in his life history
situated between the Dunya and the Hereafter. Unlike the JahilTv iew
of life which would see nothing beyond the ajal, the Qur’anic view
sees precisely beyond the ajal, the Qur’anic view sees precisely
beyond the ajal, the real life, real because it is ‘eternal’ ( khalid) as
the Qur’an is never tired of emphasizing.

And just as each individual has his own ajal, the Dunyd itself
has its ultimate ajal, which is nothing ljut the ‘Hour’ ( al-sd'ah ), the

Ontological Relation Between God and Man 1 39

Day of Judgment. Beyond this final ajal, man steps into the new life
of eternity. It is to be remarked that in the Qur’anic conception, this
whole process, comprising both the life in the Dunya and the life in
the Hereafter, is under the administration of Allah, as shown in the
above diagram. This raises, within the limits of the first half of the
course of human existence — i.e., the stretch of the line between birth
and death — the very famous problem of Qada’ wa qadar (Divine
‘Foreordination’), which is admittedly one of the most difficult
problems that the later Islamic thought had to face.

Whether this thought of Divine Foreordination is already there
in the Qur’an clearly stated and formulated as the theologians assert,
or whether, as Dr. Daud Rahbar thinks, 28 the theologians are here
reading into the Qur’an their own thought, is a difficult point to
decide. But, however this may be, it is quite certain that the Qur’an
itself raises this problem in an extremely acute form by the very fact
that it puts the whole course of human life under the absolute control
of the will of God.

It is not necessary for us in the present study to try to explore
the intricacies of this problem. The problem, in my view, rather
belongs properly to Islamic theology. Besides, all the relevant
passages in the Qur’an have been examined philologically by Dr.
Rahbar. So I would be content here with adding few words to what
he has said on this problem.

That the concept of Foreordination is not an invention of the
theologians is shown by the fact that even before the rise of Islam,
almost exactly the same idea seems to have been circulating among
some Arabs of a special religious tendency, and that even outside the
small circle of the Hanlfs. The great poet Labrd who, as I have
pointed out before, was famous for his deep religious nature, was one
of those who openly professed the belief in Divine Foreordination.
Here is an example:

^ ^ ' 9 j * j /

J-XloJ £> ^ y**-*

We men are not able to erase what He (i.e. Allah) has once written
down (kitab). How can this be, when His qada ' is absolutely
unalterable . 29

The word qadar is also used by LabTd with the same meaning: 30

140

God and Man in the Qur’an

Ontological Relation Between God and Man 1 4 1

j'jA i

1 £ij

Even in deep distress I never say ‘Woe is me!’ for what qadar has
brought about.

That this and similar verses should not be lightly explained away
as forgery as it used to be done will be clear to all those who are at
all familiar with the profound religiousness and the natural mono-
theistic tendency of this poet.

We must notice, further, that this usage of the word kitab “what
Allah has written”, i.e. Divine Decree, is in no way an isolated
example.

In the DTwan of the Hudhayl tribe, 31 for instance, Usamah b. al-
Harith uses the same word in the same sense, bewailing the hapless
fate of his tribe, and says:

duf our,

...but such was the kitab (foreordination) for them!

Notes

1 . .(102: !jr yi a y ^ Jin

This then is Allah your Lord. There is no god save Him , the Creator
of everything {Al- An ‘am, 6:102).

2. DTwan, p. 128, v. 2.

3. See above, Chapter 4, section II. The verb bard , for bara’a, is a
synonym of khalaqa , meaning ‘to create’.

4. DTwan, p. 60, v. 8. Mubdl , for mubdV comes from the verb abda’a
meaning “to bring something into existence for the first time”: another
synonym of khalaqa .

5. Al-Hamdsah, CLXXV, 3.

6. For a more detailed account of this JahilT philosophy of life, see The
Structure of the Ethical Terms in the Koran , chap. V.

7. Reading namurru instead of tamurru. The poet is ‘Abld b. al-Abras
( DFwdn , Beirut, 1958, IX, 21). It is to be remarked that of the two
' arwdhs , the first is the plural of ru/i (soul), and the second is the
plural of rfh (wind). It seems to me (fiat Charles Lyall has completely

missed the sense of this verse in his translation of the DFwdn of this
poet.

8. “If only there were no arrow of ‘ Awd stuck into my whole body and
limbs...”, said by the JahilT poet al-Find al-Zimmanl {al-Hamdsah
CLXXVI, 3) lamenting over the decay due to old-age.

9. (The wind and the rain) have completely changed the aspect of the
abodes together with the decay due to time. Indeed, no guarantee there
is against the destructive power of Zaman. (Tarafah, DTwan , ed. M.
Seligsohn, Paris, 1901, IV, 4)

10. “No sooner does a way of living seem enjoyable to us than it is
destroyed completely by Zaman , whether it be old or new.” (‘ Antarah,
DTwan , p. 61, v. 5)

11. “If my locks grow grey, it is the work of *Asr, and the inevitable end
of all that are young is grey hair.” (‘Abd Allah Salimah, al-
Mufaddaliyyat , XVIII, v. 11)

12. al-Hamasah, CCLXXIII, 6.

13. lyas b. al-Aratt, al-Hamdsah , CDLXXXV, 3.

14. Juraybah b. al-Ashyam, a Mukhadram poet, al-Hamasah, CCLX, 4.

15. Imr’ al-Qays, DTwan , Cairo, 1958, II, vv. 10-11.

16. ‘Amr b. Qamfah, DTwan , ed. Lyall, Cambridge, 1919, III, v. 11.

17. On these and other related words in pre-Islamic literature, see an
interesting philological study by Werner Caskel: Das Schicksal in der
altarabischen Poesie , Leipzig, 1926.

18. DTwan al-Hudhaliyyin, II, p. 62, v. 3, Sakhr al-Ghayy.

19. Of course it often happens the words are used in a more loose sense.
Then they are simply synonyms of dahr.

20. al-Hamdsah , CCCX, 4. The poem is attributed to al-Salakah by al-
Tibrlzl, while al-Marzuqi attributes it to “a woman whose name is
unknown”.

21. al-Nabighah, DTwan , V, 4. As regards the important concept of
‘writing’, see last paragraph of this chapter.

22. ‘Urwah b. al-Ward, in the famous “Song of an Outlaw”, DTwan ,
Beirut, 1953, p. 42, v. 2.

23. ‘Antarah, DTwan , p. 132, v. 5.

24. ‘AbTd b. al-Abras, DTwan , XVIII, 2.

25. 56:60.

26. 9:117 [116].

27. Note the word kitab (“what is written”) in this verse.

28. Op. cit. the chapters on Qadd and Qadar

29. DFwdn, cd. I lubcr-Brockclmann, Leiden, 1891, XLII, 2.

30. Cited by Cnskcl, op cit , p, 20, LabTd, XII, 18.

31 DFwdn al HudhaliwJn, II, p. 197, v. I.

Non-linguistic Communication

14 1

CHAPTER 6

Communicative Relation
Between God and Man:
Non-linguistic Communication

I. The ‘Signs’ of God

There are two chief types of mutual ‘understanding’ between God
and man. One is linguistic or verbal, that is, through the use of a
human language common to both parties, and the other is non-verbal,
that is, through the use of ‘natural sign’ on the part of God and
gestures and bodily movements on the part of man. In both cases,
quite naturally the initiative is taken by God Himself, the human side
of the phenomenon being basically a matter of ‘response’ to the
initiative displayed by God.

The will of God to open up direct communication between Him
and mankind manifests itself, according to the Qur’an, in the form of
His “sending down” the ayat (pi. of ayah , ‘signs’). On this basic
level, there is no essential difference between linguistic and non-
linguistic Signs; both types are equally divine ayat. Revelation (wahy)
which is the typical form of communication from God to man by
means of language, is in this sense only a partial phenomenon
comprised with several others under the wider concept of God-man
communication. This is why the Qur’an actually calls the revealed
words ayat without distinguishing them from other ‘signs’ of a non-
linguistic nature that are also called ayat .

But since the linguistic or verbal ayat form by themselves a very
particular class, which is better designated by the technical term of
Revelation (wahy), and since, moreover, this class is in some
important respects quite different in nature and structure from the

142

non-verbal ayat , and has so many characteristic features that are not
shared by the latter, we may justifiably regard it as an independent
unit and give it a separate treatment. This will be the special subject
of the following chapter.

The present chapter, in this sense, may be considered rather an
introduction to the more specific and more important problem of
Revelation, for it purports to give, first and foremost, the more
general structural characteristics of Divine communication comprising
both the verbal type and the non-verbal one. In any case most of
what will be said in this chapter will apply equally well to the
phenomenon of Revelation, of which it will provide a kind of
background knowledge. This is true of course only of communication
in the descending direction, i.e., the case in which God is the sender
of the signs and man the receiver. As to communication in the
ascending direction, i.e., from man to God, there is too immense a
difference between the verbal type and the non-verbal type that the
two cannot in any way be treated in the same breath. Let us begin
with the communication from God to man.

God is showing ‘signs’ at every moment, ayah after ayah, to
those who have enough intelligence to grasp them as ‘signs’. The
meaning of this, in the sense in which the Qur’an understands it, is
that all that we usually call natural phenomena, such as rain, wind,
the structure of the heaven and the earth, alternation of day and night,
the turning about of the winds, etc., all these should be understood
not as simple natural phenomena, but as so many ‘signs’ or ‘symbols’
pointing to the Divine intervention in human affairs, as evidences of
the Divine Providence, care and wisdom displayed by God for the
good of human beings on this earth.

Just as a waymark must not cause a traveller to rivet his eyes on
itself, but direct him towards a certain place which is the real
destination of his travel, so every natural phenomenon, instead of
absorbing our attention, as a natural phenomenon, and transfixing it
immovably to itself, should act always in such a way that our
attention be directed towards something beyond it. At this depth of
understanding, a natural phenomenon is no longer a natural
phenomenon; it is a ‘sign’ or ‘symbol’ — ayah as the Qur’an calls it.
And this Something Beyond to which all the so-called natural
phenomena point as ‘signs’ in the Qur’anic conception, God Himself,
or more precisely, this or that aspect of God such as His

144

145

God and Man in the Qur’an

Benevolence, His Power, His Sovereignty, His Justice, etc .

The Qur’anic conception may be made more understandable by
a comparison with the philosophical Weltanschauung of a modem
Western philospher, Karl Jaspers who, interestingly enough, has made
precisely this point one of the foundation-stones of his system. In this
system much attention is paid to the problem of the symbolic nature
of the world. According to Jaspers, we live at several different levels.
When we leave the level of the normal, daily commonplace reason
( Verstand ), at which natural things including man appear to our eyes
simply as natural things, and step into the realm of Existenz , we find
ourselves suddenly in a strange world, standing in front of God,
whom he calls philosophically das Umgreifende meaning something
infinitely great comprising everything from above. This All-
Compriser keeps talking to us, not directly, but through the natural
things. Things no longer exist here as natural, objective things, but
they are symbols, through which the All-Compriser talks to us.
Things at this stage are ‘ciphers’ ( Chiffer as he calls them) or
cryptograms. So that the whole universe is represented as a big
Chifferschrift , a book written entirely in cryptograms. In other words
the world is a big book of symbols, a book which only those who
live at the level of Existenz are able read. This would exactly
correspond to the Qur’anic thought according to which all things are
in truth dydt of Allah, and their symbolic nature can only grasped by
those who have ' aql (intellect) who can ‘think’ (tafakkur) in the true
sense of the word.

Regarding the problem as to whether or not this usage of the
word ayah originated by the Qur’an, we should remark that it was
not certainly in the Bedouin tradition, that is to say, in the genuine
Arabic language. As far as I know, there is no trace of the word
having been used in a religious sense; it is always used in the natura-
listic sense. This, however, does not seem to be true of the Hanlfitic
circle. The poet LabTd, for example, who, as we saw, shows a
markedly Hanlfitic coloring in both his diction and conception, has
the following verse:

^ 1 tUJl J>

And water and fire (i.e., the rain and the heavenly lights such as the
sun, moon and the stars) arc His (i.e. Allah’s) dydt. In them there is a

Non-linguistic Communication

lesson to learn for those who are not jdhil ( i.e those who are capable
of thinking rightly ). 1

I The problem, however, is not of central importance for our

present purposes. What is more important is the semantic structure of
the concept of ayah in the Qur’anic system itself. To this problem wc
shall now turn.

The Divine dydt as the Qur’an understands the word in a general
sense, comprise as I said at the outset, both verbal and non-verbal
symbols. The verbal type, i.e.. Revelation, is, in the nature of the
case, much more precise than the other type, being essentially
conceptual. It presents Divine Will in an articulate form. In other
words, what God wants to convey to the human mind is here given
analytically, one element after another, each element being given as
much conceptual precision as possible. While in the non-verbal one,
Divine Will is manifested globally, not analytically. And since in this
latter case there can be no conceptual precision, the message con-
veyed must necessarily be extremely vague and inarticulate. But the
non-verbal dydt have one conspicuous advantage: they can be and are
actually addressed to mankind at large without any discrimination;
moreover they can be given directly without any intermediary, while
the verbal type can be given directly only to one particular person,
the Prophet, and only indirectly and mediately to mankind. All men
are living in the very midst of the world of divine symbols, and these
are accessible to anybody if only he has the mental and spiritual
capacity to interpret them as symbols.

Now, as we know already from what has been said in the first
chapters of this book on the methodological principles of semantics,
the semantical analysis of the concept of ayah in the Qur’an will
consist in our trying to understand what it means in terms of the
‘semantic field’ which this focus-word forms around itself. We have,
in other terms, to examine the words of decisive importance — the
key-words — that surround it in the Qur’anic contexts.

For this purpose, the most important thing to remark is, in my
view, the fact that, given the Divine dydt , whether verbal or non-
verbal, the only possible human response is, according to the Qur'an,
cidicr ‘acceptance or "rejection’ — tasdiq lit. “regarding and accep-
ting, as true” or takdhrh lit. “regarding as false”. Man cither accepts
the dydt as Truth (haqq) or rejects them altogether as Falsehood

146

God and Man in the Qur’an

(batil) having no reality behind them, mere products of fantasy and
groundless imagination. And of course, tasdiq (acceptance) is the first
step towards irnan (belief), and takdhib is the very gist of kufr, the
only different being that the former pair ( tasdiq-takdhib ) is much
more realistic and naked in conception than the latter pair ( iman-kufr )
which is a degree higher in scale of abstraction. In the Qur’an we
witness tasdiq and takdhib as two opposite principles engaged in a
fierce life-and-death conceptual battle with each other. And this is
one of the basic oppositions which, as I said earlier, contribute
towards producing that intense dramatic tension that reigns over the
Qur’anic world-view. In this sense, the relation between tasdiq and
takdhib must be considered the very axis around which revolves the
whole semantic field, and which, therefore, assigns to each of the
key-terms its proper place in this conceptual system. All this must be
considered in more detail now.

Let me begin by giving in a tabular form the general conceptual
structure of the entire semantic field of ayah.

The beginning of the whole thing is the Divine act of “sending
down” ( tanzil) the ‘signs’. Without this initial act on the part of God,
there could be no religion in the Islamic sense of the word.

This Divine act, however, would remain barren and effectless if
there were no man there to understand its profound meaning, as the
Qur’an says:

We have made clear to you the signs (ayat), if you can
understand

Ali ‘Imran, 3:114 [118]

However much God calls men to the right path by showing them
ayah after ayah, if all men were incapable of understanding the
meaning of them like the Kafirs who are “deaf, dumb and blind and
do. not understand”, 2 then the ayat could not work.

The ayat begin to show their positive effect only when man
shows on his part a deep understanding. Here begins the human side
of the matter. And this very important human activity is expressed by
a number of verbs (sec Table, Column 2) which designate various
aspects of ‘understanding’. s* \

148

God ANDAMAN IN THE QUR’AN

According to the Qur’an, this human act of understanding has its
source in the psychological capacity called lubb or qalb (the ‘heart’)
(Column 3). All the mental activities mentioned in Column 2 are
nothing but concrete manifestations of this basic mental capacity or
principle. The ‘heart’ is the very thing which enables man to
‘understand’ the meaning of the Divine ayat. So, when this principle
is sealed and covered and does not function properly man cannot
show any understanding at all.

And a seal has been set upon their hearts (qalb); so they cannot
understand.

Al-Tawbah , 9:88 [87]

The qalb (heart) is naturally made in such a way that it might
understand the meaning of the ayat if it functions normally. What
does it see in those ayat if it understands them properly? This is the
problem of Column 4. It concerns the meaning of the Divine ayat
that are revealed to an understanding qalb. For such a qalb they are
mainly symbols of two things, that are diametrically opposed to each
other. Some ayat symbolize the Divine Goodness, the infinite love,
benevolence and clemency of God, while others symbolize the wrath
of God, the imminence of dreadful punishment and vengeance. In the
former case, the Divine act of showing an ayah — or rather, the
transmisson of it through the Prophet to mankind — is called tabshlr
(‘the bringing of good news’, ‘evangel’ in the etymological sense).
In the latter case, it is called indhar (warning) or more nakedly,
wa ( Td (threatening). Correspondingly, the same Prophet is called in
the Qur’an sometimes mubashshir , a ‘bringer of good news’, and
sometimes mundhir , a ‘wamer’.

The next Column (5) concerns the human response to the ayat.
The basic human response consists in either “regarding and accepting
the ayat as true” {tasdiq) or “regarding them as totally false and
nonsense and rejecting them” (takdhlb). This bifurcation of the
human response to the ayat is very important because it is directly
conducive to ‘belief or ‘faith’ on the one hand, and ‘disbelief on the
other. The immediate consequence of this bifurcated human response
together with its semantic structure, is shown in Column 6 of our

N on-linguistic Communication 1 4 4 >

synaptic table. When man accepts as true the Divine favor as
symbolized by the ayat of the first category — [A]+[a] — the result is
shukr (gratitude) [I] in religious sense. When he accepts also as true
the ayat of the second category — [B]+[a] — it results in taqwa [11],
which, as we have seen, means originally and basically the fear of the
austere Lord of the Day of Judgment and His chastisement. When, on
the contrary man regards [A] as false — [A]+[b] — the result is kufr
[III]. As we know already, this is soon extended to [B]; then —
[A] [B]+[b] — kufr acquires the technical meaning of ‘disbelief.

At the final stage, represented by Column 7 in our diagram, [IJ
and [II] united into one, and the concept of Man (belief) in the
Islamic sense of the word is bom of this combination. And Man here
stands opposed to kufr in the sense of [A] [B]+[b].

It will be evident that all this, beginning with the Divine act of
sending down the ayat and ending with the human act of either belief
or disbelief constitutes a coherent conceptual system. It forms a very
compact network of associations, in which each one of the words is
related to all other members of the network in a peculiar way, and
each one of them is tinged and colored by being related to all others.
The concept of ayah and its field furnishes also a good occasion to
show by a concrete example what kind of a thing a ‘semantic field’
is, and how it is to be distinguished from a chance combination of
words. A ‘semantic field’, of which we have here an ideal example
before our eyes, is not a mere context, in which a number of words
happen to be used together in a casual combination. 3 In a semantic
field, nothing is casual; every combination within the field is essential
in the sense that it represents an essential aspect of the
Weltanschauung.

This, be it remarked incidentally, should not be taken in the
sense that all the words that belong in this particular field cannot
enter into other combinations in other semantic fields. One and the
same word may and usually does belong to several different fields.
The word qalb is not exclusively the locus of tasdiq and takdhib\ it
is the locus of a number of other mental activities. The word 'aqala
does not exclusively and necessarily mean “understanding Divine
ayat". But as long as it works within this particular field of ayat, it
has a very particular and very important semantic coloring which it
has acquired by being associated with all other members of this

Non-linguistic Communication

151

1 50 God and Man in the Qur’an

system and influenced by the peculiar structure of the whole field
itself.

This kind of semantic coloring is very delicate and subtle to
grasp, but also extremely important in determining the meaning of
word. The meaning of a word is not exhausted by its basic meaning.
It has also a relational meaning and this latter always comes from the
essential combinations into which it enters in a given system.

II. Divine Guidance

In the preceding section we have examined the general structure of
the semantic field which forms itself around the focus- word ayah.
The basic part of this semantic field may be described more briefly
as follows: (I) God sends down the dyah\ (2) man responds to it by
either accepting it as Truth { tasdiq ), or rejecting it as Falsehood
( takdhib ); (3) the former naturally leads to ‘belief ( Tmdn ) and the
latter to ‘disbelief (kufr).

(God)

ayah

Diagram I

kufr

This, however, is not the only semantic field of ayah to be
found in the Qur’an. In fact, the Qur’an offers two different fields
formed around the central idea of Allah’s sending down the ayat. The
interesting point is that they do not exist in the Qur’anic
Weltanschauung quite independently of each other as two separate
fields, but are formed in such a way that they correspond exactly to
each other as regards their basic structure. As far as concerns the
abstract skeleton framework, both are almost exactly the same; only
the same structure is used twice, being each time provided with
different conceptual clothing produce two different semantic fields.
And this formal correspondence between two sister fields reflecting
one and the same piece of reality — the communicative activity of
God, in our particular case — in two different ways is exceedingly
important for our purpose, because, _here we see the Qur’an

interpreting itself, so to speak, before our eyes.

It is one of the characteristic features of this second system that
the ‘articulation’ of the field is done in terms of a set of concepts
which, unlike those used in the first system, have apparently nothing
to do with communication.

(God)

hada

(man)

ihtada

4alla

janndt

jahannam

Diagram II

Here the concept of ayat, to begin with, is replaced by the concept
of ‘Guidance’ ( huda ). This would imply that God’s act of sending
down the ayat is, according to the Qur’anic view, just the same thing
as His guidance; the ayat are but the concrete expression of the
Divine intention to guide mankind to the right path. And just as in
the first system man could choose either tasdiq or takdhib, so in the
second system man is free to respond to this divine act in one of the
two possible ways, i.e., either by ihtida’, ‘following the guidance’
that has been offered or dalal, “going out of the right way” by
refusing to follow the guidance thiat has been so graciously offered
to him. And those who choose the first way are on the road to
Heavenly Garden (jannah) while those who choose the second are on
the road to Hell (jahannam ).

All this is still only the first half of the whole picture. The
second half is no less important than the first, and although at the
Qur’anic stage the two are simply there existing side by side without
apparently causing any trouble at all, they later begin to clash with
one another, and, particularly in theology, end by standing in sharp
unequivocal opposition.

In this second version, the whole field is viewed from the
standpoint of the Foreordination (qada’ wa qadar) which we have
already examined in connection with the problem of the ontological
relation between God and man. From this particular point of view,
everything that happens on this earth is due ultimately to God’s Will.
In this perspective, u man who takes the right way preferring ihtida ’
to dalal or who swerves away from the right way, by choosing daldl

152

God and Man in the Qur’an

instead of ihtida’, is not, in reality, choosing anything for himself by
himself. His very act of responding to Divine guidance in either way
is the necessary result of God’s Will. He chooses daldl or ihtida ’ not
because he wills, but simply because God himself wills that he should
do so. In other words both man’s ihtida and dalai, are equally due
to Divine Will (mash f ah). Thus we read:

sj — ~* Llo yj < U , a_ i CUl Lij y |j>

Whomsoever God will. He makes him go astray, and
whomsoever He will. He sets him on a straight path.

Al-An ‘am, 6:39

This second interpretation of the matter may be shown conve-
niently in the form of a simple diagram (III). And if we compare the
two diagrams (II and III) with one another, we will see immediately
the fundamental difference between this and the first one.

(God) (man)

jannah

(goes to Paradise)

t

j ah arm am
(goes to Hell)

The comparison will make it clear that in the second system, it
is not the case, as it is in the first, that man responds to Divine
guidance either with ihtida’ (being guided) or with daldl (going
astray). Rather, he responds to Divine hudd with ihtida ', and to idlal
(leading astray) with daldl (going astray). This is tantamount to
saying that man, in this view, i§ no longer free to choose either
ihtida’ or daldl, given Divine guidance. Everything would have
seemed to be already fixed and decided from the very beginning. So
man’s “going astray” is nothing but the direct and necessary result of
God’s idlal (leading astray). And this Divine act of “leading astray”
none can resist, in such a case, not even the Prophet himself can ever
hope to lead anybody back to the right path, as the Qur’an itself
repeatedly emphasizes.

Non-linguistic Communication

n.i

Thus we see in this second system, already at the initial stage,
a basic opposition of hada (guiding) and adalla (leading astray) and
this opposition runs through the whole system, so that we have here
two lines running parallel to each other from the very beginning to
the end.

The existence of these two different ‘versions’ of one and the
same ‘story’ and the contrast between them in the Qur’an could not
but raise later among the Muslim thinkers grave problems regarding
the concept of human freedom and moral responsibility. For once you
adopt a strictly logical point of view, you must recognize the
existence of a logical contradiction between these two systems. Only,
the standpoint of the Qur’an is not that of pure logic; the Qur’anic
thought unfolds itself on a plane which is essentially different from
that of the logic of human reason. And as long as one keeps oneself
on this level of thinking there can be no place for such a problem. In
any case, the Qur’an itself did not raise the problem of human
freedom in this particular form.

Without going any further into the theological problem of human
freedom and God’s justice, let us now turn to the inner semantic
structure of the concept of Guidance, which is admittedly one of the
most important concepts the Qur’an. We have seen above how the
same field is conceptualized in the Qur’an in two different ways. But
whichever system we take as basic, we meet with always the same
conceptual opposition of ihtida ’ and daldl as soon as the human part
begins. This is common to both systems. And this opposition of
ihtida’ and daldl is to be found almost everywhere in the Qur’an;
indeed the two constitute one of the commonest and most frequently
used conceptual pairs in the Qur’an. 4

■ , opposition 1

(I) | ihtida’ 1 < ► <felat |

"being rightly guided" "going astray"

"regarding as false"

As I have said before, this pair has its counterpart, in another
semantic field, in the opposition of tasdiq and takdhlb as the two
basic forms of human response to the dydt sent down by God. But
the first pair (A) has something which distinguishes it definitely from
the second (//). Unlike the latter, the opposition ihtidd\... daldl is not

154

God and Man in the Qur’an

conceivable without there being a more basic concept underlying it:
that of ‘Way’. The concept of ‘Way’ is the ‘focus-word’ of the entire
field. In other words, the concept of ‘Way’ plays in this semantic
field the role which the concept of ‘sign’ {ayah) plays in the other.
In the Qur’an, this concept of ‘Way’ is signified by various words,
sabil, sirat, tariq being the most important ones.

Likewise, ihtida ’ and dalal have each a number of synonyms. In
place of ihtida’ are sometimes used, for example, rushd or rashad
meaning “to enter on the right path”, qasd meaning “to take one’s
way toward the right destination”. As to dalal (verb dalla ), many
different words are actually used in the Qur’an as synonyms: ‘amiha,
for example, which means “to wander about away from the right
way” (ex. 2:14 [15]), qasata (“to swerve from the right way”) (ex.
72:14-15), nakaba or nakiba with the same meaning (ex. 23:76
[74]), 5 taha (“to get lost in the desert and wander in bewilderment”)
(ex. 5:29 [26]), and ghawa, ghawiya (inf. ghayy and ghawayah), “to
go astray” (ex. 7:143 [146]).

It will be easy to see that there underlies all these concepts the
very basic concept of Way. The problem is always: Does a man take
the right way leading to his true destination, that is, God and the
salvation of his soul, or does he deviate from it and wander about
blindly in the desert of godlessness? But what is more important to
remark is that the Way in question is not simply a way; the most
decisive element in this image of Way in the Qur’anic conception is
its being ‘straight’ (mustaqim).

The Way which God indicates through His ayat is ‘straight’.
This means in the Qur’anic context that if you but follow its line, it
will lead you straight to salvation. And this straightness of the Divine
Way stands in sharp contrast to ‘crookedness’ {‘iwaj) of all other
ways. Crookedness means in this context that the way, instead of
leading you to your destination, leads you away from it.

Jy* 'jZ-X

( God commands, saying:) This is My straight way, so do you
follow it. Follow not other ways (subul pi. of sabil, with the
implication that they are all ’crooked’) lest they scatter you
away from His way.

Al-An‘dm , 6:154 [153]

Non-linguistic Communication 155

So again we see two important concepts opposed to each other
as two conflicting principles: ‘straightness’ and ‘crookedness’ in the
semantic field of the Way-concept. It is evident that ‘straight’ and
‘crooked’ are here value-words, for they stand for religious values,

I one positive and the other negative. The opposition stands out with
particular clearness because the Qur’an describes the Kafirs as cons-
tantly trying to make the ‘straight’ way of God ‘crooked’.

y* jill jjp Oj-WaJ

Why do you try to turn away from the way of God those who
believe, desiring to make it crooked (’iwaj). 6

Ali ‘Imran, 3:94 [99]

£ ^ « 0 y 0 ' , "» B £ $ J 0 - J * S'

The curse of God is on the evildoers (i.e. the Kafirs) who turn
(people away from the way of God, desiring to make it crooked!

Al-A ‘rdf, 7:42-43 [44-45]

As regards these concepts which, as we have just seen, constitute
a large independent semantic field, we should observe that this latter
was not at all a new field introduced by the Qur’an for the first time
into the Arabic vocabulary. On the contrary, it was a very old field.
It was already there in Jahiliyyah, it used to play no less an important
role in Jahiliyyah, the only difference being that in Jahiliyyah its
importance was ‘material’ while in Islam its significance lies wholly
in its metaphorical application.

For the people living in the desert, the problem of knowing the
right way or getting lost in a vast tract of sand was naturally one of
life and death. In those days each tribe had its own territory. Within
the limited confines of the territory, no serious problem could arise
concerning the right path to follow but once outside their own fami-
liar territory, most of them were helpless; there they had to stand face
to face with a vast, limitless expanse of sand full of ‘horrors’
(i ahwal ), which they often described — and must have really felt — as
an uncouth monster ready to pounce upon them at any moment, and
prey upon them. In such a situation it is quite understandable that the

i JdhiH Arabs developed u whole set of conceptual network having

156

God and Man in the Qur’an

reference to huda and ‘way’. Many different kinds of way were
distinguished, and the desert itself was named differently according
as it had such and such a property or not: whether, for example, it
had water or not, whether it was traversed by a clear plain road or
trackless, whether it was a vast waste without any way — marks, etc.
Thus, to give only one example out of many, the word yahma’ was
used particularly for a dangerous desert in which it was absolutely
impossible for anybody to tell where the right way was, an immense
plain of sand with no beaten path. There was even a particular verb
for walking at random in this kind of desert ('asafa):

A man travelling in the desert without knowing the way (mu ‘tasif from
‘ asafa ), alone ( i.e . separated from his companions), utterly
unacquainted with the place . 7

And a stupid man who fell into the habit of bringing trouble
upon himself by stepping thoughtlessly into such dangerous places
was called 'issTf (derived from the same root as 'asafa). An
interesting combination of these concepts is found in al-ShanfarS’s
famous Lamiyyah al- ‘Arab'}

oixlii Ijl ^JiJl C-IJj

I am not a man to get confused and perplexed in the darkness of night,
when all of a sudden there looms right ahead a vast trackless desert
and makes the thougtless fool lose his sense of huda .

But the point is that all these words were understood chiefly in
the most literal and material sense. The semantic field formed by
words of this kind had no religious implication in Jahiliyyah. Take
for example the word huda itself. It did not mean ‘guidance’ in the
abstract sense; it meant more concretely “to show the way” parti-
cularly in the desert. Hadi — which is the participial form of the verb
hada (to guide) — in Jahiliyyah was a man with a specialized know-
ledge of all the possible ways in the desert, whose profession was to
lead men in the right path until they reached safely their destination.
Desert was an extremely dangerous place, and even the professional
guides could at any moment go astray. And it was the source of
infinite pride and joy for a man to have^the consciousness that he was
superior in this respect to the professional guides. ‘AbTd b. al-Abras

Non-linguistic Communication

157

in one of his peoms says boastfully:

oGil Aj jGj IJLft

0- C

Enough! (Let us change our subject). Often an immense desert where
even the professional guides ( hudat pi. of hadi) lose their way, its
expanse stretching far, its sand looking like stripes on a Yemen robe,
a limitless desert, I crossed on a tall stout camel . 9

From this we see how vitally important it was those days for a
man to be a good had! himself or at least to have an experienced and
reliable hadi with him. In the Qur’anic world too, the concept of hadi
occupies a place of vital importance. Only, in the Qur’an, the had T is
God Himself, the Guide who never goes astray, who is therefore,
absolutely reliable. Thus the Qur’an completely spiritualises the
concept; it trasnfers it from the sphere of the most material aspect of
human life to the level of the religious conception of human life. It
was originally a concept relating to the experience of real travelling
in the desert. Now in the Qur’an it is a religious concept relating to
the course of human life metaphorically taken as a vast desert that
man has to travel across.

Quite naturally, the same thing happened to the concept of ‘way’
itself. Thus sirat 10 and sabil that are the most representative words for
‘way’ in the Qur’an, are used evidently in a religious sense. The two
are completely synonymous with each other in the Qur’an, and
belong to the category of the key terms that go to determine the basic
structure of the Qur’anic Weltanschauung. In pre-Islamic times too,
the poets used these two words frequently, but always in a non-
religious, material sense.

To say the truth, it is not the question of a few key-words taken
separately. The whole semantic field of Way acquires in the Qur’an
a deep symbolic meaning. The Qur’an, to put it in another way,
transposes the entire conceptual field, with all the individual words
that form it, from the material level of thinking to the religious level
of thinking, spiritualizes it, and makes the metaphorical system of
concepts thus produced the very basis on which to build up its
religious philosophy.

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God and Man in the Qur’an

III. The Worship as a Means of Communication

As already remarked, communication between God and man, verbal
or verbal, is not a unilateral, but a bilateral, reciprocal phenomenon.
Corresponding to the verbal type of communication from God to
man, which is nothing but Revelation, there is du'a’ ‘(personal)
prayer’, conversation of the human heart with God, calling on God
for His favor and aid, as the verbal type of communication in the
ascending direction. In a similar way, the non-verbal Divine
communication consisting in God’s sending down the non-verbal
ayat, has a human counterpart in the services of worship and the
religious exercises known in Islam as salat. In fact, salat or the
Worship is susceptible of being looked at from various points of
view. But from the particular standpoint of the present study, it is the
non-linguistic variety of communication in the ascending direction,
i.e. from man to God, for it is a formalized ‘expression’ on the part
of man of the profound adoration which he feels in the' presence of
the Almighty. Man, instead of merely receiving the words and signs
of God in a passive way, is strongly urged and commanded to
express positively his feeling of adoration through a cycle of physical
acts in company of others who share with him the same feeling.

Certainly salat contains some verbal elements," because besides
the prescribed bodily movements, reading from the Scripture, reciting
the confession of faith ( shahadah ), the benediction for the Prophet
etc. , constitute an important part of the Worship. But we must remark
that the verbal elements i.e., words, are used here in quite a different
way from the words in personal prayers (du ‘a "), for in salat, they are
used ritualistically; all the words assume a markedly ritualistic
significance, while in du'a type of prayer, the words are used
primarily for the expression ad hoc of strictly personal thoughts and
feelings calling for expression at a particular moment. A man in his
du ‘a, in short, really ‘means’ what he says. While in salat, the words
he utters do not describe his own personal ideas, but are by nature
symbolic in the sense that they form part of the ritual. The verbal
elements in salat are not at all verbal in the ordinary sense of the
word. Moreover, what is important here is the whole pattern of
worship, which is something far more than verbal. It is, on the whole,
a non-verbal way of communication from man to God; it is the
human way of establishing direct contact with God through the

Non-linguistic Communication

159

prescribed form of ritual.

With Prophet Muhammad, salat seems to go back, in spirit not
in name, to his pre-Islamic days. All the important Hadiths agree in
asserting that Muhammad, following the practice of some of the
devout Makkans, used to go in temporary seclusion from the worldly
affairs to a cave on al-Hira’ near Makkah every year for a certain
number of days. And according to the traditional account, this had
continued for several years before finally the Truth visited him and
raised him as Apostle of God. In the Hadiths this is called tahannuth.
Although the etymology of this word is obscure, it is fairly certain
that it meant some devotional exercises. And perhaps we may
consider it the pre-Islamic stage of the salat.

Be that as it may, the salat, the ritual prayer or Worship, soon
became one of the major institutions of Islam, and was given an
exceedingly important place among the religious duties as a distinc-
tive feature of the nascent Muslim community. It is not necessary
here to go into the details of this institution . 12 Let it suffice to note
that sujud (verb sajada), ‘prostration’, which is the very culmination
of this type of worship, and which consists in the believer’s
prostrating with his forehead touching the ground before the object
to be worshipped, was known among the pre-Islamic Arabs as the
form of expressing the deepest admiration heightened to the degree
of adoration; The poet al-Nabighah, for instance, describing the
enthralling beauty of a girl, says : 13

Or (she may be likened) to a large virgin pearl, before which the diver,
in a glee, lifts up his voice in adoration and prostrates himself.

If such a girl showed herself to the eyes of a Christian monk with
gray hair on his head, he would begin worshipping God {i.e. he would
prostrate on the spot in admiration), even the monk who, unmarried,
has spent all his life in pious devotion.

As to the basic meaning of saldt we know that the verb salld
generally meant "to invoke blessings upon someone” in both the pre-

160

God and Man in the Qur’an

Qur’anic and the post-Qur’anic literature. 14 Here I give a very
interesting example of its usage in pre-Islamic poetry.

The poet al-A‘sha in describing how carefully wine is preserved,

says:

And (the wine-dealer) exposed it to the wind in a jar, then invoked
blessings upon the jar and sought assistance from God (so that the wine
might not turn sour). 15

But far more important than this for our purpose is the fact that
already in Jdhiliyyah the word was occasionally used to mean
something which comes nearer to the Qur’anic concept of salat.

Thus ‘Antarah in a poem which he composed in praise of the
great Emperor of the Persian Empire Anushirwan has left this
extremely interesting verse: 16

All the kings of the earth pay homage to him from all places of the
world (lit. from every valley-path); all people on earth turn their face
towards him.

The word imam as used in this verse is interesting. It means the point
upon which your gaze is turned and concentrated. In this sense it is
synonymous with one of the most important Qur’anic terms in the
field of salat: al-qiblah which means technically the direction to be
faced in public worship. Significantly enough, the same poet actually
uses the word qiblah precisely in this sense in reference to the same
Emperor Anushirwan: 17

Qussad is the plural of qasid, “one who aims at something”,
“one who intends to go towards something”. So the sentence
means — addressing the Emperor — “Oh you the direction to which the
gaze of all people is turned, Oh you crown of sublimity!”

As is evident, here<he material content of saldt is different from
the Islamic saldt, but the formal structure is the same; the only

Non-linguistic Communication

161

difference consists in the fact that here the qiblah, instead of being
the direction of Makkan Shrine, is the imperial palace of the Persian
Emperor, and the worship itself is the Imperial cult, instead of being
the divine cult of Allah.

Notes

1. Labld, Diwan XLII, v. 5. As regards the meaning of jahil, I shall give
a detailed later (see Chapter 8).

2. y (►£> 2:166 [171]

3. Take for example the Qur’anic verse “They (Moses and his page)

forgot their fish” (18:60 [61]). The combination of the two

words ‘forgetting’ and ‘fish’ is quite casual. It is a mere context; it
does not produce in any way a semantic field. Nobody would say that
the verb nasiya (to forget) has acquired a special semantic from this
particular combination.

4. For example, 39:38 [37]; 2:170 [175], etc.

Those who believe not in the Hereafter are deviating
from the right way.

6. 'iwajan for mu 'wajjatan.

I. ‘AbTd b. al-Abras, Diwan XIV, 2.

8. v. 19.

9. Diwan XLI, vv. 12-13.

10. A very old borrowing from the Latin strata (i.e. via strata, ‘paved
way’) meaning the so-called Roman road. The word appears in the
Diwan of ‘Abid al-Abras in the plural from surut meaning just
ordinary roads. The Jahili Arabs, in so far as we can judge from their
literature, seem to have lost all memory of this etymology.

I I. “The Worship consists of ‘word’ ( qawl ), ‘deed’ ('amal) and ‘absten-
tion’ ( imsak ). (viz. from the forbidden acts)” ^ — Q 3 y J5UJI

al-Shafi‘1, al-Risdlah, §357, p.121.

12. For such details, see E. E. Calverley, Worship in Islam, Madras, 1925.

13. Diwdn, p. 52, v. 2; p. 54, v. 2.

14. tS'jL J

162

God and Man in the Qur’an

9:85 [84]; 9:104 [103]; 33:42 [43] may be adduced as some of the
Qur’anic examples.

15. Cf. Lisan al-'Arab , p. 242; irtasama means “to pray to God for
protection”, but according to Abu Hanlfah, the verb here means “to
seal up the jar tightly”.

16. DTwan , p. 164, v. 16.

17. DTwan , p. 171, v. 8.

CHAPTER 7

Communicative Relation
Between God and Man:
Linguistic Communication

I. God’s Speech ( Kalarn Allah)'

The communicative relation between God and man in the Qur’anic
view is, to repeat what has been pointed out several times, basically
twofold: (1) from God to man and (2) from man to God. In the
previous chapter we have dealt with the non-verbal type. As I said
there, the verbal type which is going to be the subject of the present
chapter, is in the last analysis but a particular case of the more
general phenomenon of God-man communication represented in a
typical way by the non-verbal category. This being the case, what has
been said about the fundamental structure of the non-verbal
communication applies in toto to the verbal one, as far as concerns
the God-^man side of the matter. In other words, Revelation is nothing
but a very particular case of the “sending down” of the ayat. Only,
Revelation stands out so clearly and distinctly from all other forms
of “sending down” that it demands to be treated separately as an
independent category. And this is also the Qur’anic view on this
question. In the Qur’an, Revelaton is given a very special place. It is
treated there as something extraordinary, something mysterious, the
secret of which cannot be disclosed to the ordinary human mind.
Hence the necessity of the intermediary called ‘Prophet’. In this
respect, the ayat which God sends down in this special form are
wholly different from all other ayat, which are ‘natural’ and,
therefore, accessible to any human being who is possessed of the
normal capacity of ‘right understanding’.

163

164

God and Man in the Qur’an

We may point out as one of the most characteristic and
distinguishing marks of the three great religions of Semitic origin,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the view common to all of them that
the very historical source, the ultimate guarantee, of the Truth of the
religious experience of the believers lies in the initial fact of God’s
having revealed Himself to human beings. And Revelation means in
Islam that God ‘spoke’, that He revealed Himself through language,
and that not in some mysterious non-human language but in a clear
humanly understandable language. This is the initial and the most
decisive fact. Without this initial act on the part of God, there would
have been no true religion on earth according to the Islamic
understanding of the word religion.

It is no wonder, then, that Islam should have been from the very
beginning extremely language conscious. Islam arose when God
spoke. The whole Islamic culture made its start with the historic fact
that man was addressed by God in a language which he himself
spoke. This was not a simple matter of having “sent down” a sacred
Book. It meant primarily that God ‘spoke’. And this is precisely what
‘Revelation’ means. Revelation is essentially a linguistic concept.

Now Revelation in this sense has, within the Qur’anic contexts,
two different, but equally important aspects. One of them concerns
its being a ‘speech’ ( kalam ) concept, in the narrow technical sense of
the term ‘speech’ as distinguished from ‘language’ ( lisan ). The other
has to do with the fact that of all the cultural languages that were
available at that time the Arabic language was chosen by God by
design and not by accident — as the Qur’an emphasizes in several
places — as the means of divine speech. Using the Saussurian termi-
nology we may distinguish between these two aspects by saying that
the former is the parole- side, while the latter is the langue- side of the
problem, kalam and lisan in Arabic being roughly equivalent to the
French parole and langue respectively. Both of these aspects will
come to have grave cultural repercussions later in the history of
Islamic thought, the significance of which will be made clear as we
go on. Let us first concentrate our attention on the parole-aspect
of Revelation.

We shall begin by remarking that Revelation, according to the
Qur’anic conception of the phenomenon, is God’s parole : Revelation
(wa/ 7 >’)=God’s speech ( kalam Allah). Far from being an arbitrary
interpretation, this is actually the paraphrase which we meet with

Linguistic Communication

165

frequently in the Qur’an. And, as will be easy to imagine, the fact is
very significant in regard to the subject of this chapter. Just one or
two examples from the Qur’an may suffice to make this point
convincing. Thus in Surah al-Tawbah we read:

4^ r'X’c^. J- 1 fffcj i ^ %.{ *-0

If anyone of the polytheists comes to you (O Muhammad)
seeking thy protection as a client, make him thy client so that he
may have the chance of hearing God’s speech (kalam Allah).

al-Tawbah, 9:6

Here it is contextually evident that “God’s speech” refers to what
God has spoken and said to the Prophet, i.e., words revealed to him.
Likewise in Surah al-Baqarah, in reference to the revelation of the
Mosaic Law it is said:

' > ' * ' « " o * 0 * i - 9 "£\

j jiji Oo -Uj (*SJ 1 O' 0

a Jilt- li -Uj jiyC aLi

Can you have any hope that they (i.e. the Jews) will submit to
you when a party of them used to listen to God’s speech (kalam
Allah), then changed it arbitrarily and consciously after they
had understood it?

al-Baqarah, 2:70 [75]

The very possibility of turning ‘Revelation’ into a more analytic
form of “God’s speech” shows most clearly that this phenomenon has
semantically two different points of emphasis: (1) God and (2)
speech. In other words, the concept has two bases on which it stands.

When particular emphasis is put on the first basis, i.e., God, and
the whole phenomenon viewed from that side, the concept of
Revelation is signified by a certain class of words that cannot pro-
perly be applied to any aspect of the ordinary and normal human
speech behavior, like tanzil (sending down), wahy etc. Tanzil can
never be used in reference to an occurrence of speech act between
man and man, The ‘basic’ meaning of the word, in which, in this
case, etymology makes itself felt with particular clearness, forbids it

1 66 God and Man in the Qur’an

to be applied except to supernatural communication. For the root
from which the word, is derived, NZL, means ‘descending’, and
tanzll, therefore, has the meaning of “causing (something) to go
down”. As regards wahy, we may notice that it is sometimes used in
reference to human communication, or indeed, for that matter, even
to animal communication as often happens in pre-Islamic poetry, but
even in such cases, the word can be used only when the commu-
nication in question, whether human or animal, occurs in an
extraordinary situation, and it is always accompanied by a sense of
secrecy and mysteriousness. This point will be examined later in
more detail, when we come to the problem of the meaning structure
of this important word in the Qur’an.

It suffices to remark at the moment that Revelation, when looked
at from this angle, is not a speech act in the natural and ordinary
sense of the word. And if we go a step further and place an absolute
emphasis on this first basis of the concept, Revelation becomes a
theological mystery incapable of being grasped by human analytic
thought. The phenomenon of Revelation, in this respect, is something
essentially mysterious, that does not allow of analysis; it is something
only to be believed in.

We should not forget, however, that the concept of Revelation
has another and equally important basis, which renders it capable of
being analyzed in a normal way. Revelation, as I have suggested
above, is semantically equal to “God’s speech”. If, instead of putting
an exclusive emphasis on the first constituent, we view the matter
from the angle of the second element, we realize at once that Reve-
lation is, after all, a kind of ‘speech’. Otherwise, the Qur’an would
not have used the word kalam (speech) in describing Revelation.

It is difficult, then, to resist the conclusion that, although, in so
far as it is God’s speech Revelation is something mysterious and has
nothing in common with ordinary human linguistic behavior, in so far
as it is speech, it must have all the essential attributes of human
speech. In fact, the Qur’an uses also other words in reference to
Revelation, that are most commonly applied to ordinary, common-
place products of speech: kalimah meaning ‘word’ for example, in
Surah al-Shura:

Linguistic Communication 1 67

And God will wipe out the Falsehood and establish the Truth as

Truth with his words.

al-Shura, 42:23 [24 1

Qawl is another word of this kind; it is evidently of the
commonest of all terms relating to the human speech behavior. Qala,
i.e. “someone said something”, is one of the words that have most
frequently been used in Arabic from the earliest time of its history
until today. The word qala is so commonplace that it needs almost
no explanation. The word is there; and everybody understands its
meaning. In connection with the topic under discussion, it is
important to note that in the Qur’an God Himself often uses this
word in reference to the content of His own Revelation.

Thus in Surah al-Muzammil, God, addressing Muhammad, says:

4(%£

Verily, We are going to cast upon thee a weighty word!

al-Muzammil, 73:5

It should be noticed that here God refers to His own Revelation
by means of a word which is the commonest of all words for human
speech act, qawl, though, to be sure, it is qualified in this verse by a
very strong adjective meaning ‘weighty’ or ‘heavy’ ( thaqil ).

The conclusion to be drawn from this brief consideration is that,
although revelation in itself is a phenomenon that goes beyond all
comparison and defies all analysis, yet there is a certain respect in
which we can approach it analytically and try to discover the basic
structure of its concept by considering it an extreme, or rather, an
exceptional case of the general linguistic behavior common to all
beings that ‘speak’ at all.

What makes Revelation such a particular non-natural kind of
linguistic phenomenon is that in it the speaker is God and the hearer
is a man. This means that speech occurs here between the super-
natural order of being and the real order of being, so that there is no
ontological balance or equilibrium between speaker and hearer. In the
normal give and take of words, both the speaker and the hearer exist
on the same level of being, standing on the footing of ontological
equality. A human being speaks to and is understood by another

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God and Man in the Qur’an

human being. There can be no linguistic communication between a
man and, say, a horse, except as a metaphor, because, between a man
and an animal, however intelligent the latter may be, there is no
equality in regard to the level of being. The utmost that can be
produced between the two partners in such a case is a non-verbal or
extra-linguistic exchange of signs. The poet ‘Antarah offers an
extremely interesting example regarding this problem.

In the well-known verses of his Mu l allaqah-Ote^ he describes
in a most touching and pathetic way his experience of such a non-
verbal communication between himself and his horse. The intimate —
almost personal, we should say — relation between the poet and the
horse has been proverbial among the Arabs.

In these verses ‘Antarah depicts the tragic death of his beloved
horse on the battle-field. Already the horse is mantled in blood. With
several spears stuck in the breast, the horse flinches and turns aside,
being no longer able to spring forward toward the enemy. “Then he
complained to me with gushing tears and sad whimpering. Had he
but known what it was to exchange words, he would have described
his pains, had he but known how to speak he would have spoken
to me”. 2

A man and an animal cannot communicate with each other
linguistically for two closely related reasons: (1) lack of a common
sign-system between them and (2) essential difference of an onto-
logical nature. Stated thus abstractly, the same thing is true of the
theoretic impossibility of verbal communication between God and
man, for here too there is no common sign-system between the
two, and an essential ontological difference separates them from
each other.

However, in the case of the Qur’anic Revelation, the first hind-
rance regarding a common sign-system was removed by the fact that
the Arabic language was chosen by God Himself as the common
sign-system between God and man. But the second, ontological,
hindrance was not of such a nature that it could be removed so
easily. Hence the extraordinariness of this phenomenon. For here
genuine linguistic communication does occur between two levels of
being that are worlds apart and between which lies an infinite
distance of essential separation. And yet God speaks to man, and man
hears the words and understands them. And that is Revelation. How
should we account for this extraordinary phenomenon? Or rather,

Linguistic Communication 16^

how did the Arabs themselves of that age experience it and what kind
of conception did they form for themselves of this strange happe-
ning? That will be our main concern in the first half of this chapter.

But before we begin to grapple with this difficult problem, we
must try to analyze the original meaning of the word wahy, which is
admittedly by far the most important of all words in Arabic denoting
the phenomenon of Revelation.

II. The Original Meaning of the Word Wahy

Fortunately, the word wahy is one of those that are used repeatedly
in pre-Islamic poetry, and this facilitates very much the analysis of
the original, that is, pre-Qur’anic, structure of the concept. From
various examples of its usage I would isolate as its essential semantic
conditions the following three points.

1 — It is ‘communication’, in the first place. In order to smooth
the way for analysis, I would like to introduce at this point a new
methodological concept: ‘two-person-relation word’, and begin by
saying that ‘communication’ in general belongs semantically to the
class of two-person-relation words. What does this mean? Let me
first explain briefly what I mean by a ‘two-person-relation word’.
The conception, as we shall see presently, plays an exceedingly
important role in the analysis of the semantic structure of Revelation.

In analysing word meanings in general, we find it often very
useful to begin by paying attention to the ‘number’ of persons invol-
ved, the word ‘person’ in this context being taken in the sense of
dramatis personae. In other words, it is often important for us to
know, as a first step in semantical analysis, how many persons —
actors — should be there on the stage in order that the event denoted
by the word might actually occur. This is of course restricted only to
those cases where the idea of ‘person’ is involved in the basic
structure itself of the meaning. A table is there, for example, for
people to sit at, and books are there for people to read, but the
meaning structure of ‘table’ or ‘book’ does not contain the idea of
‘person’ as one of its primary and essential costituents.

What I mean by a ‘two-person-relation word’ will be besi
understood idler these general remarks, if one compares with each
other the two simple sentences “I eat” and “I blame”. The verb in the

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first sentence is a ‘one-person-word’ while the verb in the second
sentence is a ‘two-person-relation word’. I have chosen intentionally
the verbs ‘eat’ and ‘blame’, both of which are so-called ‘transitive’
verbs, to show that the semantical distinction we are now talking
about is something apparently similar to, but in reality quite different
from, the grammatical distinction between the transitive and the
intransitive.

Both ‘eat’ and ‘blame’ are transitive verbs, and yet the former
is a ‘one-person’ word, while the second is a ‘two-person’ word. In
the case of ‘eating’, only one person is required to be on the stage.
Of course, there may be more than one person, but that is something
quite accidental and of only secondary significance as far as the basic
semantic structure of ‘eating’ is concerned. There is one actor on the
stage; he eats, and this is all that is required in order that there may
be an occurrence of the verb ‘eat’. 3 This kind of words I would call
‘one-person’ words. In the case of the verb ‘blame’, on the contrary,
there must be two persons on the stage. The act called ‘blaming’
cannot in the nature of the case actually occur unless there are at
least two persons. If there is no one else, the actor blames himself,
if he does blame at all. And this is also, structurally, a two-person-
relation, the actor playing a double role.

Coming back to the word in question wahy, we observe, in the
explanation, that it is a two-person-relation term. There must be, in
other words, two persons on the stage in order that the event which
is called wahy may actually take place. Let us call them A and B. In
this process A acts actively (A->B), and the act itself is the
transmission of A’s will by means of a sign or signs. And there can
be here no reciprocity, that is to say, the relation, once established,
cannot absolutely be reversed. It is strictly unilateral communication.

2 — It is not necessarily verbal. That is to say, the signs used for
the purpose of communication are not always linguistic, though
words may also be used.

3 — There is always a sense of mysteriousness, secrecy, and
privacy. In other words, this type of communication is esoteric, so to
speak. The communication is strictly a private matter between A and
B. A makes himself perfectly clear to B, but to B only. There is a
perfect communication between them, but it is made in such a way
that the context of communication is difficult to understand for the
outsiders.

With these three essential conditions in mind let us examine
closely one interesting example, and see how wahy looks like when
the conceptual structure just explained becomes materialized. The
example is from one of the well-known odes of ‘Alqamah al-Fahl, a
first-rate poet of pre-Islamic times: 4

Qjloif ^ jso\y iii J ^yy

The poet is here describing, with a pleasant touch of humor
coming from personification, the homecoming of a male ostrich. This
male ostrich has got far away from home in search of food.
Suddenly, on a rainy and windy day, he remembers “his wife and
children” — i.e. the female ostrich and the eggs whom he has left at
home. The rain somehow makes him feel anxious about them, and he
begins to run as fast as he can toward his home. He comes back and
there he finds his family safe and in peace. Relieved of his anxiety,
he begins to talk to his wife delightfully. He is saying something to
her. What is he saying? No one knows besides themselves: it is a
secret between the two. This is the situation which the poet is trying
to convey. He says:

The male ostrich is talking to her (yuhl , a verbal form corresponding
to our wahy) with cracking sounds ( inqad , which is the ‘ostrich
language’) and with naqnanah (an onomatopoeic representation of the
‘cracking of the ostrich’), just like the Greeks talk with each other in
an incomprehensible language ( taratanu ) in their castles.

The word taratanu (for tataratanu) in this context is very
important for our purpose. The basic verb ratana, of which
tataratanu is a derivative form, consists semantically of two
fundamental elements. One is the idea of the speaker’s being a
foreigner, that is, a non-Arab, whose mother-tongue is some non-
Arabic language. And the second is that it is completely incomp-
rehensible to an Arab hearer. The derivative form taratana turns the
combination of these two elements into a ‘two-person-relation’, with
an additional idea of reciprocation so that it produces in our minds
the image of foreigners talking with each other in some incomp-
rehensible language. Whenever such a thing happened among the
Arabs, quite naturally they got very suspicious. In the Musnad of Ibn
Hanbal, one of the canonical collections of the Hadiths , for example,
it is related that a young Greek was once seen talking to a Greek

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173

woman married to an Arab “in their own incomprehensible
language*’, 5 ‘and that this was immediately taken as conclusive
evidence that there was a secret and illicit relationship between the
two.

In the light of this information, the second half of this verse
would seem to give an important clue as to how we should under-
stand the key-word in the first half, yuhf, that, in short, wahy.
Suppose two persons are talking with each other in your presence
with an air of intimacy in a foreign language which you do not
understand. You are sure that between the two persons there is
perfect communication of ideas and sentiments going on, but you
cannot penetrate into the content itself of the communication, because
you are an outsider. You are completely shut out from their intimacy.
And this naturally arouses the sense of of witnessing something
mysterious.

That the semantic structure of the word wahy contains an
element of mysteriousness coming from incomprehensibility may be
shown by another fact. In pre-Islamic poetry the word wahy is very
often used to mean ‘writing’, ‘letters’ or ‘characters’. Thus Labrd in
his Mu ‘allaqah- Ode, speaking of the remains of the old abode of his
beloved, long deserted by the inhabitants, says that its trace has not
yet been completely erased; it still remains “like characters” ( wuhiyy ,
pi. of wahy). 6

Likewise al-Marrar b. Munquidh, a poet of the first century of
Islam:

‘fy ‘-d l^L. iSy)

Now you see only some faint traces (of the old abode) just like the
letter L in the writing of books. 7

The Arabic lexicons usually give two different meanings to this
word wahy : (1) revelation and (2) letters, as if there were no
connection at all between the two. This view overlooks the very
important fact that for the pre-Islamic Arabs, who were mostly
completely illiterate, letters were something mysterious. We know
how they were struck with astonishment by the strange — so they
felt — South Arabian characters engraved on the rocks. It was the time
when the word qalam (pen) still carried unusually grave and deep

implications as is shown by the fact that the word occurs in one ol
the oath-formulas which characterize the earliest Surahs of the
Qur’an.

By the Pen , and what they inscribe (therewith)?*

Al-Qalam , 68:1

Again, in another important passage, the same word appears
assuming symbolic meaning:

Recite: And the Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the

Pen, taught man that which he did not know (before).

Al-Alaq , 96:4-5

The written letters were signs of something, all Arabs knew it
very well. The written letters were there to convey some meaning,
but most of the pre-Islamic Arabs did not know what those signs
conveyed. They were to their minds something mysterious.
‘Communication’ coupled with the sense of ‘mysteriousness’ — this
was the connotation of writing at that time. Thus understood, the two
allegedly different meanings of the word wahy are, far from being
different from each other, just one and the same thing.

In regard to this idea of mysterious way of communication
conveyed by the word wahy, attention may be drawn to the existence
of a very interesting example in the Qur’an. To be more strict, it is
not so much a ‘mysterious’ as ‘non-natural’ way of communication.
Still, in any case, the basic idea is the same.

In the Surah Maryam, Zakariyya is made dumb and speechless
for three days as a sign {ayah) of God’s special favor. There we read:

' r* I* ' *

Then he came out unto his people from the sanctuary and
signified (awful, the same word as yuhi — wahy) to them: Glorify

erf}

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175

(your Lord) morning and evening.

Maryam, 19:12 [11]

Under ordinary natural conditions the Qur’an might have used
the word qala (“he said”) or amara (“he ordered”). But ZakariyyS is
temporarily dumb; he cannot say anything. So he makes a signal to
his people, not by words but by gesture. The purpose of commu-
nicating ideas is achieved here in an unusual a way. This is what is
implied by the word wahy in this passage.

The example is interesting because it is an extremely rare case
in which both A and B who are involved in the two-person-relation
of wahy are human beings. Normally in the Qur’an, only one of the
two persons, B, who receives the communication is a human being.
A is God Himself. For example:

jll Oi yy tjl

in this respect. Quite exceptionally, God even “speaks” to Mosc^
directly — the word used being kallama. This word is a transitive
verbal form of kalam, ’speech’ (parole) to which reference was made
at the beginning of this chapter, and implies definitely a two-personal
verbal relation between A and B.

For instance, in the Surah al-A‘raf, 9 Moses goes up, alone, the
Mount Sinai to meet God — one of the well-known Biblical scenes.
There “the Lord spoke to Moses ( kallama-hu )” in complete seclusion
from all other human beings. And in the Surah al-Nisa’, we read:

» A a

y y dll

And Apostles of whom We have told thee before and Apostles
We have not yet told thee. And unto Moses God spoke directly
(kallama taklTman).

Al-Nisa’ , 4:162 [164]

And We — the speaker is God — signified (awhayna, from wahy)
to Moses. Throw down your stick!

Al-A’raf 7:114 [117]

Similar examples abound in the Qur’an. It is important to remark
that the wahy at this stage is not yet ‘Revelation’ in the proper,
technical sense of the word. At this stage the word wahy is a
synonym of ilham, (of a more general, non-verbal nature). The usage
of the word wahy in this sense would suggest that God communicates
His Will to a human being directly, putting no intermediary between
them (A^B); only, this is done without any linguistic formulation of
the thought. God, in this case, works upon.the human mind in such
a way that the latter understands the will of God immediately.
‘Revelation’ in the proper, Qur’anic sense, is, besides being a verbal
process, something more than a simple two-person relation; it is a
.three-person-relation, or even a four-person-relation. This we shall
/ see presently.

But before turning to this problem, it may be well to notice, in
connection with the question of the direct two-person communication
between God and man, that in the Qur’an Moses occupies a very
unusual position. It would seem that of all the Prophets recognized
as such in the Qur’an Moses is allowed to enjoy a special privilege

In another passage, the same Sinai scene is described in a diff-
erent way that is, in terms of different concepts:

cUj yj y

And We — the speaker is God — called to him from the right side
of mount (Sinai) and let him come near in order -to have a
personal talk with Him.

Maryam, 19:52 [53]

The verse here quoted is remarkable in that it uses two inte-
resting linguistic concepts which, if interpreted rightly, would provide
a clue to a very important aspect of the phenomenon of wahy. The
two concepts of which I am now talking are nada and najiy.

The verb nada is in meaning roughly the same as kallama, the
only difference being that the concept signified by the former is spe-
cially conditioned in terms of the space relation between A and B: it
means, A speaks to B, A being in a far-off place. It means “to talk to
somebody from afar”; there is always the element of a long distance
involved between A and B in this concept. In this sense, it is the
contrary of was was a (“to whisper into another’s ear”) which we shall
discuss later Waswasa implies the shortest possible distance between

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God and Man in the Qur’an

A and B. “Long distance between A and B naturally necessitates that
A should speak in a loud voice, while in the case of waswasa, A
speaks to B in a low muffled voice.

Examples of nada abound in pre-Islamic poetry. Here I give one
of them which seems to make the basic structure of the concept parti-
cularly clear.

When we go out hunting, we never try to deceive (animals) by wearing
camouflage (i.e. the running-down of the quarry is so certain). On the
contrary, we cry out from afar: Get on your horse ! 10

As regards the second word najiy we must notice, first of all,
that it refers the particular status of B in the A relation of linguistic

communication. It means B as a person standing in a particularly
intimate personal relationship with the speaker A. It is the ‘confidant’,
to whom A can safely confide all his secrets and completely unbosom
himself. This kind of confidential talk is called in Arabic munajat,
which is derived from the same root as najiy. This is also specially
conditioned in terms of the distance between A and B; the use of the
word usually suggests that the speaker and the hearer stand very close
to each other — hence qarrabna (“We let him come near”) in the
Qur’anic text just quoted.

All this would seem to suggest that Moses in this respect was
given a very special divine favor. The Qur’an itself emphasizes very
much this fact, as is evident from the Surah al-Baqarah, where we
read:

jjubJ

Those Apostles, some of them We have caused to excel others.
Among them there is one to whom God Himself spoke (man
kallama Allahu), and some there are whom He has raised in

rank.

Al-Baqarah, 2:254 [253]

dJ' (45 j* a***

It is in this sense that the later theologians called Moses kalim
Allah , meaning thereby a man upon whom God bestowed a special

Linguistic Communication

177

favor by speaking to him directly.

It will be worth remarking further that in this two-person (Aj_B)
relation, if A happens to be not God but Shaytan (Satan or Demon),
then the communication is not usually called wahy , but waswasah 11
(whispering). But structurally these two are not entirely different
from each other. Besides the difference in regard to the ‘distance’
between A and B , which we have seen above, the only main diffe-
rence between them lies in the ‘source’ of natural communication: in
one case it comes from God, while in the other it is Shaytan who
happens to be the source of inspiration. Semantically, waswasah is
contained as a small sector within the larger field of wahy . This is
shown by the fact that the Qur’an uses sometimes the verb awha
(wahy) exactly in the particular sense of waswasah.

^-y ^ ijp

Likewise We have appointed to each one of the Prophets an
enemy — Demons , whether of humankind or jinn , who inspire
(yuhf) in one another words adorned with false embellishments,
beguiling one another.

Al-An‘dm , 6:112 [113]

i o]))>

Verily, the Demons are inspiring (yuhuna) their companions (i.e.
Kafirs) to dispute with you (i.e. Muslims).

Al-An ‘ dm , 6:121

Coming back to the word waswasah, it is worth noticing that, in
the Qur’anic conception, the human soul itself plays sometimes the
role of the Shaytan , as we see from the Surah Qaf, where we read:

\j?y*y Lla1>-

We created man, and We know what his soul whispers
(tuwaswisu, from waswasah) to him.

Qaf 50:15 |16|

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Usually in cases like this, the word connotes something myste-
rious, said in a low, whispering tone, which deranges and agitates the
mind and puts into it an alluring temptation. Al-A‘sha al-Akbar 12 uses
the word in describing the clattering sound of bracelets and ankle-
rings as the beautiful girl Hurayrah walks away gracefully, which
entices him and stirs up in his heart an irresistible passion:

J » j p> y. tiS"" cui lil

You hear the tempting sound (waswas) of her ornaments as she walks
away, a sound just like a rustling ‘ishriq-tree when the wind blows
through its (leaves) [lit. when it ( i.e . the tree) seeks help from a wind].

Interestingly enough this verse of the great poet seems to
respond to a Qur’anic verse, in which the pious Muslim women are
admonished not to do anything that is likely to provoke men’s lust.

* . '. •*// ( i * • f - ■» a -

ufrO ot ^ j V: j 1 -

Let them not stamp their feet so as to be known (i.e. so as to

disclose) the ornaments (i.e. the ankle-rings) which they hide.

Al-Nur, 24:31

This is a very well-known verse and is often quoted in Islam as
a ground for prohibiting dancing. The commentator al-BaydawT says
that the clattering ( taqa'qu ’) of ankle-rings is likely to excite lust in
men.

Thus understood, the Qur’anic verse throws an illuminating light
on A’sha’s description of Hurayrah, and consequently, on the very
nature of the concept of waswasah.

III. The Semantical Structure of Revelation

I turn now to the Qur’anic concept of Revelation ( wahy ) in the
proper technical sense, with a view to analysing it from the seman-
tical point of view. This will be done by isolating one by one all the
essential conditions under which the word standing for that concept
is naturally and properly elicited. 13

To put it in a more plain language: When and in what kind of

179

concrete situation is the word wahy actually used in the Qur’an'/
What are the strictly necessary conditions which, when fulfilled, will
enable one to use this word properly? To give a detailed analytic
answer to this basic question will be the main task of this section.

The first essential condition is the most general one. Revelation
is a concrete speech behavior ( kalam ) which corresponds to la parole
in the terminology of modem linguistics. The parole is, in Saussurian
terminology, linguistic communication which takes place in a con-
crete situation between two persons, one of whom plays an active
role, and the other a passive role (A->B). And this is exactly what is
meant by the Arabic word kalam. In this respect wahy is a partial and
more particular concept falling under the general concept of kalam.
And this implies that all the semantical conditions of the word wahy,
which it will be our task to isolate, should be such as bring out the
specific characteristics of wahy which contribute towards making it
a particular concept within the wider field of kalam.

Now in regard to this first condition, there are two important
points to note; namely, first, that it is essential to any act of speech,
that is, parole qua parole, that both A and B should resort to one and
the same system of signs, which is, as we saw earlier, nothing other
than what is called today in French langue corresponding to the
Arabic lisan. In other words, in order that there might be an effective
linguistic communication, A should speak the language which is
comprehensible to B. In normal cases both A and B belong to one
and the same language community. Otherwise, A should speak the
language of B, or at least he should use some foreign language which
happens to be comprehensible to both of them. In the Qur’anic
Revelation, God (A) talks Muhammad (B) in B T s language, that is
Arabic. The problems relating to the use of Arabic as the language
of Revelation in Islam will be dealt with more fully in section IV.

The second point is that it is essential that A and B should stand
on the same level of being, that they should belong to the same
category of being. In the case of Revelation — and here begins the real
characteristic of the concept of Revelation — this basic rule is violated.
For A and B, i.e., God and man, are quite different from each other
with regard to the order of being. Here most evidently A and B do
not stand horizontally on the same level of being. The relation is
vertical: A stands above, representing the highest level of being, and
H stands below, representing a far lower level of being.

ISO

God and Man in the Qur’an

Linguistic Communication

I K I

This ontological situation plays an exceedingly important part in
the structure of the Qur’anic concept of Revelation. Let us, then,
isolate this as the second essential condition of this concept and direct
our attention to the special problems which it raises semantically. As
I have said above, no linguistic communication can occur between A
and B when there is this kind of ontological discrepancy between the
two. In order that real linguistic communication might occur in spite
of this basic rule of language, something extraordinary must happen
to either A or B.

This point has been cleaily grasped by some Muslim thinkers.
Al-Kirmanl for instance, in his famous commentary on al-Bukkan’s
HadTth-Collection says: 14 Revelation consistsin verbal communication
between God and man. But theoretically no exchange of words (al-
tahawur ), nor teaching (ta ‘ lim ), nor learning ( ta ‘allum) is possible
unless there is realized between the two parties a certain kind of
equality, i.e . 9 the relation (munasabah) of the speaker (al-qa’il) and
the hearer (al-sami ').

How, then, is such an extraordinary relation realizable between
God and man? There are, al-Kirmanl replies, two possible ways:
either the hearer ( B ) should undergo a deep personal transformation
under the overwhelming influence of the spiritual force of the speaker
( A ), or the speaker should come down and assume somehow the attri-
bute of the hearer.

And he adds that both cases actually occurred with Muhammad.
The auditory type of Revelation in which, as we see in the HadTth ,
Muhammad is reported to have heard some strange noise like the
ringing of a bell or the humming of bees, exemplifies the first cate-
gory. While the visionary type of Revelation, equally mentioned in
the HadTth and the Qur’an, in which he is related to have seen the
heavenly Messenger or Angel, belongs to the second category.

Opinions may differ on this last point. But in any case we must
acknowldge that al-Kirmanl saw quite rightly the fundamental nature
of speech, and that also he tried to interpret the fact of Revelation in
terms of this basic principle.

However this may be, it is certain that the particular kind of
munasabah (relation) of which al-Kirmanl speaks can be established
between a supernatural being and a man, if it is possible at all, only
by a drastic transformation, a naturalization, we might say, of the
personality of the man. Here something beyond his power, something

against his nature comes to pass forcibly in himself. This causes him
most naturally the keenest pain and torture, not only mental but also
even physical. This happened to Muhammad in various forms.
HadTths tell us of his intense sufferings, physical pains, the feeling of
being choked at those moments. ‘A’ishah relates — and this is one of
the most famous authentic HadTths about Revelation — “I saw him as
Revelation came down upon him on an extremely cold day. His fore-
head was running with beads of perspiration”. Other HadTths report
that when the Revelation came, his face darkened; sometimes he fell
to the ground as if intoxicated or swooning; sometimes he groaned
like a camel-calf etc.

Ibn Khaldun in his Muqaddimah explains this phenomenon in
this way. This physical pain, he says, is due to the fact that in this
supernatural experience, the human soul which is not by nature
prepared to experience such a thing, is forced to leave momentarily
its humanity ( al-bashariyyah , ‘human-ness’) and exchanges it for
angelicality (al-malakiyyah, ‘angel-ness’), and becomes actually for
the time being part of the angelic world until it resumes its human-
ness . 15

But this is of course a theoretic or philosophical explanation of
the phenomenon. This was not certainly the way the Arabs in
Muhammad’s time approached the problem. Indeed the pagan Arabs
had ready at hand a very convincing — of course to their minds — way
of interpreting this kind of phenomena.

We must keep in mind in this connection that we are as yet only
at the second stage of our analysis. All we have established so far is
that we have here a case of verbal communication coming from a
supernatural being to a human being. Properly speaking, the problem
of Who or What this supernatural being might be is not yet solved.

Now, if we stop at this stage — and the pagan Arabs did stop al
the stage and obstinately refused to go any further — and look at the
matter from the JahilT point of view, then the whole thing would
appear to be just the very familiar phenomenon of possession ( tajnTn ),
which is, in no way peculiar to the Arabs or the Semites, but some-
thing of the widest occurrence throughout the world and generally
known in modem times under the name of shamanism. Some
invisible supernatural being, whether a spirit or divinity, suddenly
possesses an ecstatic person momentarily, and utters through him
impassioned words, mostly in verse, which the man could never

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compose by himself in ordinary, i.e. non-ecstatic, moments.

This phenomenon was extremely familiar to the pre-Islamic
Arabs. For the kahin (soothsayer) was exactly this type of man who
was able to be possessed at any moment by a supernatural force. And
this was the sole form of verbal inspiration known to the pagan
Arabs. The ‘poet’ ( sha ‘ ir ) also was, originally, this type of man.

Let us first examine the concept of ‘poet’ in ancient Arabia as
an ‘inspired’ man. In doing this we must bear in mind the very
important fact that the pre-Islamic poetry which has been preserved
and handed down to us is mostly the product of the latter JahilT
period, when the Arabic poetry had already passed long ago the
cruder stage of primitive shamanism. By the time Islam appeared the
poetry had already been elaborated and refined to a very great extent
into art, almost in the sense in which we usually understand the word
today. The famous pre-Islamic poets, like Imr’ al-Qays, Tarafah and
others were no longer shamans; they were rather real artists.

And yet in their work there are some sporadic remains of the
ideas belonging to the older stage, and particularly there is a branch
of poetry called al-hija ’ — a kind of satirical poetry, which is based
precisely on this primitive idea of word-magic . 16

This hija- poetry, as was shown admirably well by Goldziher’s
now classical work on this branch of Arabian poetry , 17 preserved
even right into the Umayyad period the pre-historic shamanistic
conception of poetry. Besides, we have also a huge amount of old
oral traditions preserved in various books, which provide with
valuable material for studying the Arab conception of the poet and
poetry in the earliest, unrecorded times.

What was poetry and what kind of man was a poet in the
original form in Arabia? To make a long story short, the poet, as his
very name sha'ir — it is a derivation from the verb sha'ara, or
sha'ura meaning “to have cognizance of’, i.e., in this case, of
something to which ordinary people have no access — implies, was a
person who had the first-hand knowledge of the unseen world. And
this knowledge of the unseen world he was supposed to derive, not
from his own personal observation, but from constant intimate
commerce with some supernatural beings, called Jinn. Thus poetry at
this stage was not so much an ‘art’ as supernatural ‘knowledge’
derived from direct communication with the unseen spirits who were
believed to be hovering around in the air.

I K \

The Jinn did not communicate with everybody. Each had a
special choice. When a Jinn found a man of his or her liking, he or
she pounced upon him, threw him down to the ground, kneeled upon
his chest, and forced him to become his mouthpiece in this world.
This was the initiation ceremony of poetry. The man, from that time
on, was known as a ‘poet’, in the full sense of the word. And there
was established between the poet and the Jinn a particular kind of
extremely intimate personal relationship. Each individual poet used
to have his own Jinn who came down upon him from time to time
to give inspiration. The poet usually called his Jinn his “familiar
friend” ( khalil ). Not only that; the Jinn who came into such an inti-
mate relationship with a particular poet was even known by a proper
name somewhat like John or Mary. For instance the Jinn of one of
the greatest pre-Islamic poets al-A‘sha al-Akbar had the personal
name Mishal, the original meaning of which is “carving knife” — a
name symbolic of his glib, eloquent tongue. This Jinn Mishal appears
only in his poetry.

Here I will give only one example , 18 which is particularly signi-
ficant in connection with our present topic.

iiJf 3>ii ^ ^ ^ ill

r- 6^1 j A L*— *

>-1 j — A N ^ ^ ^

The situation is somewhat like this. The poet is being attacked
by an enemy poet. He must make a counterattack: otherwise he
would not only lose face personally, but he would let his whole tribe
suffer a defeat according the basic belief of the age. He feels irri-
tated, impatient and uneasy, and somehow he cannot utter a word. As
an excuse he describes his strange relationship with his Jinn , and says
that he remains dumb and speechless in the face of his enemy, not
because he is incompetent or ignorant but simply and solely because
bis Jinn does not yet give him words.

He says: M l am not an inexperienced debutant, 1 '* in the art of
poetry but my situation is like this: whenever Mishal bestows upon

184

God and Man in the Qur’an

me the word I begin to be able to speak. Between us we are two
intimate sincere friends; a Jinn and a human being who is naturally
fit to him. If he only speaks (i.e. if he inspires me), then I will no
longer be incapable of saying anything I would say. He suffices me
so long as he is neither a tongue-tied one nor an awkward stupid
fellow”.

It is important to note in this connection that
this kind of demonic inspiration was always felt
by the poet to be something “coming down” from
above i.e., from the air. And for this aspect of
poetic inspiration, the word nuzul (verb nazala, to
come down”) was most generally used. 20 Thus, for
example, Hassan Ibn Thabit 21 describes his own
poetic experience in this way:

' £ 9 , 9 fit*" ' '

y y J-*- ij-* 4u_j jj ( J_Jj J

" " * - *

Oft did a grave and heavy verse [the word qdfiyah does not mean, in
a context like this, simply ‘rhyme’ or ‘rhyme word’ as it does in later
Arabic, but it rather means words endued with a magical power by
their being uttered in poetic form — a sort of incantation, like the word
carmen in Old Latin] resound at night; oft did I receive it as it came
down [lit: its coming down nuzul ] from mid-air.

To this we must add another important point, namely, that in the
most ancient days of Arab heathenism known to us the position of
the poet in the society was extremely high. A real poet was an inesti-
mable tribal asset in peace as in war. In time of peace he was the
leader of the nomad tribe, because of the supernatural knowledge he
got from his Jinn. The wanderings of the tribe in the desert were
regulated by instructions given by the chief shaman-poet of the tribe.
In this sense, in the majority of cases shd'ir was almost synonymous
with qa 7 id (tribal leader). In war time he was considered to be even
more powerful than a warrior because he had the supernatural power
of disarming the enemy, even before the actual battle began, by
curses and spells which he launched against the enemy in verse-form,
and which, were believed to have far more terrible effects in bringing
destruction and shame upon their target than arrows and spears. Such
was the prc-Islamic conception of the poet although in the latter
Jdhilf period just preceding the rise of Islam, the social position of

A (Jinn)

B (shair)

Linguistic Communication IKS

the poet was no longer so high.

This makes us understand why the Prophet Muhammad was so
often regarded by his contemporaries as a “poet inspired by a Jinn"
(shd'ir majnun ), as we know from the Qur’an itself. 22 The pagan
Arabs stubbornly refused to see anything in Muhammad which would
distinguish him from a person possessed and inspired by a Jinn. In
their eyes, here was a man who claimed to have a knowledge of the
‘Unseen’ (i al-ghayb ), brought to him by a supernatural being coming
down from heaven (nuzul). Whether that supernatural being be God,
an Angel or a Shaytan , there was no essential distinction at all in
their conception; all were Jinn.

The Qur’an tells us that the pagan Arabs could hardly diffe-
rentiate Allah from the Jinn. For instance, in the Surah al-Saffat we
read:

They set up between Allah and the Jinn a kinship.

Al-Saffat, 37:158

In other words, in their conception both Allah and the Jinn belong in
one and the same family.

Moreover, this man, Muhammad, showed in moments of pro-
phetic inspiration evident signs of intense physical pain and mental
sufferings. So here was, they thought, another shd'ir — a man posse-
ssed by a Jinn ; 23 this was their natural immediate conclusion.

That such was the most prevalent and most widespread view
among the pagan Arabs the Qur’an gives ample evidence. The very
fact that the Qur’an stresses constantly that the Prophet Muhammad
has nothing at all to do with demoniac possession, that he is not a
man “possessed by a Jinn' is in itself the strongest evidence that sudi
was the actual situation at Makkah.

Turning now to the Qur’anic view of the matter, we may
observe that, from the standpoint of the Qur’an, the pagan Arabs whe
took Muhammad for a ‘poet’ committed a double mistake: first, b>
confusing the Almighty God with an inferior being, Jinn , anci
secondly by confusing a Prophet with a poet possessed by a Jinn.

According to the Qur’anic view, the real source of Prophetic
inspiration (T) is not a Jinn but Allah. And there is between these

186

God and Man in the Qur’an

Linguistic Communication

187

two an absolute reference, for Allah is the Creator of the whole
world, while the Jinn are merely created beings ; 24 and they, just like
ordinary human beings, will be brought forth before God on the Day
of Judgment to be judged , 25 and Hell will be filled both with men and
Jinn.

In the second place, there is also an essential and absolute diffe-
rence between a Prophet and a poet. A poet is by nature an affak : 26
what he says is sheer ifk , a word which does not necessarily mean a
‘lie’, but something which has no basis of haqq (reality) or ‘truth’,
something that is not based on haqq. An affak is a man who utters
quite irresponsibly whatever he likes to say without stopping to
reflect whether his own words have some real basis or not, while
what a Prophet says is Truth, absolute haqq and nothing else . 27 So
that the A-+B relation of prophetism, although it bears an outward and
formal blance to the A^B relation of shamanism, has an essentially
different structure from the latter.

The word majnun (possessed) among the Arabs of that age was
applied to still another type of man: kdhin to which reference was
made earlier. We must now turn to this second concept.

Kdhin (soothsayer) was also a man possessed by Jinn , who
uttered non-natural words under demoniac inspiration. Kdhin had
much in common with sha Hr. Indeed, the more we go back to the
ancient times the more difficult does it become to distinguish one
from the other. After all, both were manifestations of shamanism, and
in origin they must have been one and the same thing both in their
nature and in their social function. And yet historically, there seems
to have been some important points of difference.

Kdhin , in Jahiliyyah , was a man with occult powers, who
exercised those powers as a profession, and received freely hono-
rarium for his services, called hulwdn. At least in the latter JdhilT age
as we know it from the old traditions, the kdhin- ship was almost a
social institution. He was interrogated on all important tribal and
inter-tribal problems. He acted as an interpreter of dreams, he was
asked to find lost camels; he served the tribesmen not only as a
medical doctor but also as a detective in matters concerning crimes
committed in society.

However, far more important from a linguist’s point of view,
was a stylistic feature which distinguished a kdhin from a shd'ir. The
kdhin always gave his uttcrcnccs in a particular rhythmic form known

as saj \ Opinion is divided as to whether this was the earliest form ol
poetry among the Arabs. Most probably it represents the prc-poelic
form of expression: it is a form of expression which lies between
regular poetry and the prose of ordinary daily conversation. Real
Arabic poetry begins with rajaz, and saj ' is a stage just preceding it.

Saj* consists in a sequence of short pregnant sentences, usually
with a single rhyme. And this was the most typical style of inspi-
ration and revelation in ancient Arabia. All speech-act that had its
origin in the unseen powers, all speech-act that was not a daily
mundane use of words, but had something to with the unseen powers,
such as cursing, blessing, divination, incantation, inspiration, and
revelation, had to be couched in this form.

The word itself saj ' (corresponding to Hebrew shag j
etymologically and originally meant the cooing of pigeons and doves.
And it was associated with the purring sound of the Jinn ’s voice. The
Prophet Muhammad himself, in a HadTth going back to ‘A’ishah,
describes the impression produced by the kdhin s utterance as the
clucking of a hen : 28 “He (the Jinn) clucks (yuqarqiru) into the ear of
his companion like the clucking (qarqarah) of a hen”.

As an example of this style, I will give here the very well-
known prophecy uttered by a famous kdhin Satlh , of whom it is said
that in moments of demoniac seizure he folded himself up like a
garment so that his whole body appeared to be boneless except his
skull . 29

effj You see a black charcoal
illh 'j* hSr'j* coming forth from the darkness of night
jLJf jpf j cJtjjj And it alights on a land sloping towards the sea
JT oir u And devours everything that has a skull

This piece of saj ' is said to have meant the impending invasion
and conquest of Yemen by the Ethiopians. When pressed by the king
of Yemen as to whether this prophecy was true, the same soothsayer
is related to have uttered the following words, also in saj ' form.

188

God and Man in the Qur’an

i j fs-Wj By the evening twilight
ijLjJIj By the darkness
jUhj By the dawn
ijL \i\ When it breaks bright 30

s * 2

jiJ aj ihllil G j; Verily what I have told you is truth

This one example will make it sufficiently clear that the saj‘, as
regards its form, was a kind of rhymed prose very close to real
poetry by the repetition of rhyme, but different from poetry in not
having meter in the sense of measures syllables. We may notice also
that the saj‘ style of the kahin was characteristically marked by
strange oath-formulas, conjurations of nature, of which the second
piece gives us some examples.

Both of these features, i.e., the repetition of rhyme which gives
often the sense of haunting beauty, and the conjurations of nature are
characteristic of the early Surahs of the Qur’an. Is, then, the Qur’anic
style fundamentally saj'l In some passages the Qur’anic style seems
to satisfy in every respect the basic formal norms of saj‘, while in
others particularly in the later Surahs the usage of rhyme words
deviates so far from the standard norm of saj‘ that we can hardly
recognize there the ordinary saj ‘-form. But what is far more
important from the Qur’anic point of view is the content itself of the
message conveyed, and not the form of expression which conveys the
message.

However, the pagan Arabs contemporary of Muhammad did not
look at the matter in this way. Instead, most of them stuck to the
stylistic point of view, and took Muhammad for a kahin simply
because of the formal, stylistic characteristics. The Qur’an of course
denies emphatically the Prophet’s being a kahin :

'Jj 2L j

By the grace of thy Lord thou (Muhammad) art neither a
soothsayer nor man possessed by a Jinn!

Al-Tur, 52:29 31

Linguistic Communication

1 X‘l

We are now in a position to examine from our particular point
of view the third — and the most important — feature which
characterizes the structure of the Qur’anic concept of Revelation. In
the Qur’an, Revelation as a supernatural linguistic event is a thrce-
person-relation concept, which makes it structurally something
entirely different, not only from ordinary human speech, but also
from all other types of verbal inspiration having Jinn as its source.

We must begin by calling to mind that both in the case of sha ‘ir
and that of kahin, the A^B relation is essentially a two-person-
relation. A, i.e., a Jinn establishes a close personal relationship with
B, i.e., a human being: so close is this personal relationship that the
Jinn who possesses the man speaks through the latter. There is no
intermediary between them. We might even say that in moments of
demoniac seizure, the Jinn and the man are completely united into
one person. And this is the phenomenon which we generally know
under the name of shamanism.

This does not apply to the Qur’anic conception of Revelation
which is, as I have just said, a three-person-relation. There was, in
other words, in Muhammad’s prophetic consciousness always some-
body, some mysterious being between God and himself, who brought
down Divine Words to his heart. So that the basic structure of
Revelation in the sense in which the Qur’an understands it is like
this:

A~> M~> B

We have to go on to examine this structure further in detail.
According to the Qur’an itself, there are only three possible types of
verbal communication from God to man. The three types are clearly
stated and distinguished from each other in the Surah al-Shura, where
we read:

^ f a1)I a^I5kj 01 ft*- )

" / f. s s ", * ^ K. I * ' ''l * * * f

It is not for any man that God should speak to him except by
wahy, or from behind the veil (min ward 7 hijabin) or by God s
sending a messenger (rasulan) to communicate (yuhiya) by His
leave what He wills.

Al-Shurd, 42:50-51 [51]

God and Man in the Qur’an

Linguistic Communication

190

191

So the three different manners of Revelation are: (1) mysterious
communication, (2) speaking from behind the veil, and (3) the
sending of a messenger.

The first type is not elucidated in this verse, and, strictly
speaking, we are left in the dark as to what is meant in concrete
terms. But the word wahy would seem to suggest that the reference
is to that sort of direct communication which, as noted above, was a
special divine favor bestowed upon Moses to the exclusion of all
other Prophets.

As to the second type, the expression used — “from behind the
veil” — suggests that there does occur a verbal communication (not a
simple ‘inspiration’ or ilham); only the hearer in this case does not
have any vision of the speaker himself. But, although nothing is
visible to his eyes, the Prophet has the clearer consciousness of there
being somewhere in close vicinity a mysterious being who speaks to
him in an extremely strange way. I think we can supplement our
knowledge about this phenomenon by some important informations
from the Hadfth .

In a very famous tradition 32 going back to ‘A’ishah, it is related
at al-Harith b. Hisham having once asked the Prophet saying, “O
Apostle of God, how does the revelation come to you?”, the latter
replied, “Sometimes it comes to me like the ringing of a bell (mithla
salsalati al-jarasi ). And this is the most painful manner of revelation
to me; then it leaves me and I have understood (wa ‘aitu) from that
noise what He (God) meant to say”.

Attention must be drawn to the use of the perfective aspect
(wa ‘ aitu , “I have understood”) in the last sentence, a fact which is
quite significant in this context as Ibn Khaldun pointed out long ago.
What Muhammad is trying to convey thereby seems to be that while
he is actually receiving Revelation he does not have the consci-
ousness of hearing any intelligible words spoken; all that he hears is
something like a mysterious, indistinct noise (i dawiyy ), but the
moment it ceases and he himself returns to the level of normal human
consciousness he realizes that the noise has already transformed itself
into distinct meaningful words.

The reading “like the ringing of a bell” (mithla salsalati al-
jarasi) is not so certain as it is usually assumed. The last word, al-
jarasi (“the bell”) may very well be read also as al-jarsi\ then the
phrase would mean “like some low and distinct sound”. Besides,

there are several other variants: “like the noise of the beating of some
metal”, “like the flapping of the wings of a bird”, etc . Still, what is
meant is always some mysterious, indefinable sound.

Then comes the third type, that of verbal communication by
means of a special messenger; here Muhammad not only hears the
words spoken, but actually sees the speaker. And it is to this third
type that the remaining half of this Hadlth refers. There we read:
“and sometimes — the Prophet goes on saying — the Angel appears to
me in the form of a man and speaks to me, and in this case 1
understand (a 7) immediately what he says”. We must notice that here
the verb (wa 'a) 9 which has occurred in the perfective aspect (wa ‘aitu)
in the first half of the passage, now appears in the imperfective
aspect (a 7). This suggests clearly that in this case, and in this case
only, Muhammad hears real words spoken.

Apparently Muhammad was not only an auditory type of
prophet; he was also a visual type. He had many visions at critical
points of his prophetic career. And in the Qur’an itself, in two
different places reference is made to the appearance of the Mighty
Being who transmitted to him Allah’s words. One is 53:1-8, the other
is 81:15-25.

In the former the Divine messenger is described as shadld al-
quwd (“One terrible in power”) i.e., a being glorious and majestic,
who stood straight in the highest part of the horizon, then drew near
and approached till he was at the distance of two bows or nearer, and
transmitted the Divine message. The second passage also gives a
similar picture.

This majestic and mysterious being who made himself visible to
Muhammad and transmitted to him the Divine words was at first, i. e . ,
in the Makkan period, simply called by the symbolic name of ruh al-
quds (‘Holy Spirit’).

1 jLa\$

Say: the Holy Spirit has brought it down [ nazzala , a verbal form
corresponding to tanzll] with truth from thy Lord , to confirm
those who believe and to be guidance and good tidings to those
who have surrendered (muslimin).

Al-Nahl , 16:104 [102]

* ■ '"'it " m v * * *

192

God and Man in the Qur’an

Linguistic Communication

It is also called al-ruh al-amin, the ‘Trustworthy Spirit’:

yy ^ py *

4 jit**

And verily this is a revelation [tanzil lit. ‘sending down’] of the
Lord of the Universe, which the Trustworthy Spirit has brought
down upon thy heart so that thou (Muhammad) mayest be one
of the warners, in clear Arabic language.

Al-Shu'ard, 26:192-195

At the same time it is strongly emphasized that it is not an
inspiration coming from the Jinn (26:210-21 1 — the word al-shayatin,
Satans, being synonymous in this kind of context with Jinn.)

Later, in MadTnah, this ‘Holy Spirit’ comes to be identified as
the Angel Gabriel 33 (Jibril or Jabril). And in many of the authentic
Hadiths, the Divine messenger who brought down Revelation to
Muhammad is said to have been from the very first Jibril.

So if we are to stop at this stage of analysis, we should simply
say that the Revelation is a three-person verbal relation, A *M y B, in
which the initial point is Allah, the final point is the Prophet, and the
middle term is the angel Gabriel. And yet, to say the truth, we should
not stop at this stage, because our analysis of the concept of Reve-
lation has not yet reached its end. We must go further into the fourth
stage of analysis.

At the fourth stage, the very purpose of the Divine Revelation
is the main problem. As we have just seen, God reveals His will
through a heavenly messenger to Muhammad. But Muhammad
himself is not the final point. Revelation does not aim at the personal
salvation of Muhammad. God does not speak to Muhammad in order
simply to speak to him. The Divine words should go beyond
Muhammad: they must be transmitted to others. In ordinary cases of
speech act (A-+B), A speaks to B, and the speech stops when it reaches
B; if the speech is to continue, as a dialogue, then the same process
reversed, B, the original hearer becoming now speaker and saying
something back to A, the original speaker (A <~B); this is the structure
of the usual kalam. While in our particular case, B must in his turn
become speaker not in the reversed, but in the same direction- — or

191

more correctly, transmitter of what A has told him. Here arises the
problems of tabligh or balagh (transmission). And B is called rasul
(apostle) or ‘messenger’ precisely in the capacity of the transmitter
of the Divine words.

Viewed in this light, the concept of Revelation in Islam is not
a three-person-relation: it must, in reality, be considered a four-
person-relation concept (A-+M~*B^C). According to the Qur’an itself,
this C was historically the people of Makkah at first, then the Arabs
as a whole, then all the so-called People of the Scripture, and then
finally the whole mankind. B is not simply a man who receives
Divine Revelation; he is a man who receives it and then transmits it
to the people. In this sense, just as the angel Gabriel was a
messenger 34 (rasul) sent by God to Muhammad, Muhammad himself
is now a rasul Allah (God’s Messenger), acting as an intermediary
between God and the world.

O'* Aj — “J ^ fj) pj \j'

opL n u ^ ,&fj fa yJr/J'j +

O my people, there is no error in me, but I am a messenger
(rasulun) sent by the Lord of the Universe. I convey (uballighu)
to you message of my Lord . 35

Al-A'rdf 7:59-60 [61-62]

'fajJd t jJd t

js. df \ piu fa-

Know that the sole duty of Our messenger is to convey (al-
balagh) clearly (the Divine words).

Al-Ma’idah, 5:93 [92]

Many other examples could be given, but the idea is so clear
that it is not necessary to do so.

Linguistically this opens a very interesting and important prob-
lem. Since B is the transmitter of what A has said, B must memorize
and transmit A’s speech word by word. It must be conveyed to C
exactly in the words and phrases in which it has been given. Not
even the slightest change or omission is permissible. In other words,
the Divine words, when they reach and arc received by B, must form
an objective entity, an objective linguistic work — a sprachwerk , as

194

God and Man in the Qur’an

Linguistic Communication

195

the Germans would say. The Divine words as an objective
sprachwerk in this sense are called qur’an. The word qur’an,
whatever its etymological meaning may be, means in this context a
piece of Divine Revelation as an objective entity. Of course the
whole body of the individual qur ’ans may also be designated by the
same word, and this is evidently the most usual sense in which the
word Qur’an (or more popularly Koran) is understood now.
However, this was not its original meaning.

In any case it is the most important duty or function of a
Prophet to keep in memory the revealed text literally so that he may
convey it to his people without altering even a word. If any modi-
fication occurs, then the Prophet may be accused of having comm-
itted the grave sin of tahrlf which means ‘turning round’, Twisting’,
‘falsification’ (the verb being harrafa), although it is particularly the
case when the modification has been done intentionally. In the
Qur’an we see the Jews constantly accused of having “intentionally
twisted” the revealed words. 36

Revelation in the technical sense of the word differs essentially
in respect from the non-technical, or pre-technical, concept of wahy
which I explained above. There, as we saw, ‘revelation’ — if we can
use this term legitimately in such a case — is a kind of prompting to
action. It may not be verbal: the man who receives inspiration in this
sense may not have a clear consciousness of the exact words and
phrases that have being spoken to him. The main point is that he
should understand the idea itself and act in accordance with it.

Take for example the following verse:

LiTj ^5* 'iti jll O' y

And We revealed (awhayna) to Moses: “ Throw down thy rod! ”
And (he threw it down), lo, it (immediately changed into a snake
and) swallowed up what they (i.e. the Egyptian magicians) had
schemed.

Al-A ‘raf, 7:114 [117]

As we see, God simply commanded Moses to cast his staff and
he cast it accordingly. The sole purpose of wahy here is to prompt
certain action; it is a kind of imperative. The words themselves do
not count. The purpose of wahy once achieved, it is no longer

necessary for the words to remain permanently, as a sprachwerk.

In the case of Revelation in the proper, technical sense, every
word and every phrase should remain permanently as an objective
sprachwerk. Muhammad himself was keenly conscious of the extreme
importance of keeping in memory, while he was receiving revelation,
the exact words and phrases as they were being given. This is clearly
reflected in the Qur’an. In the Surah al-Qiyamah, we see Muhammad
admonished not to move his tongue in haste to follow the revealed
sequence of words. 37 For there is danger, in doing this, of
Muhammad’s forming unintentionally in advance the words that are
about to come, instead of waiting calmly and quietly until the
revelation comes to an end. But it is clear that this haste or
impatience on Muhammad’s part was due to his prophetic
consciousness that he should not forget even a single word. God
Himself assures Muhammad in the same passage that He will take
care of everything, so that all Muhammad has to do is wait until the
revelation assumes a definite verbal form, and follow its wording
passively.

And this is one of the reasons why from the point of view of
Islam the Qur’an is ‘inimitable’ ( mu'jiz ). And this constitutes the
famous problem of the ‘inimitability of the Qur’an’ (ijaz al-Qur ’an).
Ibn Khaldun explains the point in the following way. The Qur’an
occupies a unique position and stands alone among all the divine
books, because here we have the text of revelation in its original
form while in the case of the Torah and the Gospel, he says, the
prophets received the revelation only in the form of ideas, which
they, after they returned to the normal state, formulated and expre-
ssed in their own words. — We must observe in parentheses that this
is not wholly true, because in the Hebrew prophetic books there arc
preserved some revelations in verse-form in their original wording,
as they were given to the Prophets. But as a whole this is true,
because the bulk of the Old Testament text is a work of professional
writers. — Hence all the heavenly books, Ibn Khaldun concludes, with
the sole exception of the Qur’an, do not have ‘inimitability’.

The word nabiy, as I have said, means, with regard to that
particular aspect which is directly related to the concept of Reve-
lation, a man specially chosen by God Himself to receive Revelation
to the exclusion ol all others, to make a sprachwerk out of it by
memorizing the original wording to the minutest detail, and then to

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197

transmit it to his community.

As to the origin of this Arabic word itself, the Western scholars
unanimously maintain that it is a borrowing from the Hebrew nabhl’.
Here we seem to detect a confusion of ‘word’ with ‘concept’. It is
true that the particular connotation of transmitter of Divine Reve-
lation was something completely foreign to the Bedouin Arabs, who
had no idea at all of what Revelation was and in this sense it
certainly belonged to the circle of the monotheistic ideas, that was
historically bound up with a long Biblical tradition; and so it is but
natural that the word nably should not appear in the pre-Islamic
poetry of the Bedouins. But this should not be taken to mean that the
word itself is a direct borrowing from Hebrew. The word nably, in
both its formation and its root meaning, belongs to the genuine
Arabic stock. The root NB’ goes beyond Arabic far back into the
Semitic antiquity with the meaning of ‘anouncing’ and ‘proclaiming’.
However this may be, the etymological question is of a secondary
importance for our purpose. What is much more important from our
standpoint is to know whether the Qur’anic concept of nably
coincides completely with the Biblical concept of nabhl \ 38 And for
this purpose we must push our analysis a step further.

When we, trying to isolate the characteristic features of the
Qur’anic concept of ‘Prophet’, examine it carefully from the
semantical point of view, we find two points standing out as worthy
of special attention. These two points are both of a negative nature.

One of them is that the Arabic nably has essentially nothing to
do with prophecy or prophesying in the sense of future-telling. A
nably , in the Qur’anic conception, is not a foreteller of the future.
The root from which the word nably has been derived, NB \ has, as
we have just said, certainly the meaning of ‘announcing’, ‘giving
news of something’ and yet it is not towards the future that the
concept faces. In the Qur’an, the news brought by a Prophet is
always news of the ghayb (the unseen world of God). The Prophetic
activity is always centered around transmission of the Divine Will. Of
course in a certain sense, the detailed description of Hell and Paradise
that will be disclosed to the eyes of mankind on the Day of Judgment
may be said to be a prediction of the future. But this is far different
in nature from a description of some impending and imminent event
which is about to happen to a definite person or definite nation as
often happens with the Hebrew prophets seeing beforehand what will

come to pass in the future; this is not at all part of the function of the
Arabian nably. But this was not so easily understood by
Muhammad’s contemporaries, as is evidenced by the very fact that
he was on many occasions asked by various men to predict future
events, great and small. In the minds of those people, the concept ol
nably seems to have been still vaguely associated and confused even,
with the old traditional concept of kdhin .

The second of the negative characteristics of the semantic struc-
ture of nably is that the words he speaks or conveys have nothing to
do with magic. This is an extremely important point, because it is
perhaps from this angle that we can distinguish most appropriately
the Islamic concept of Revelation from all manifestations of the
Arabian shamanism, like poetry and oracles.

In pre-Islamic times, the saj* which was the style of all inspi-
ration, and rajaz which was the first poetic form developed from the
saj \ both of them are mainly used for purposes associated in some
way or other with word-magic. In those ancient days, words uttered
in measured lines and with recurring rhymes were believed to be
endued with strong magical powers. The Prophet Muhammad himself
recognized, according to many Hadlths , the very real power the
rhyme possessed. As a matter of fact Muhammad was greatly helped,
in his campaign against the pagans, by his favorite poet Hassan ibn
Thabit who stood in high estimation among the Muslims precisely in
this capacity, despite all that the Qur’an says disparagingly about
poets and their low moral standard. It is related that Muhammad once
remarked to this poet:

"* ? 9 a' s t, is f-o'

Your poetry is much more dangerous to our enemy than arrows shot

in dark of night . 39

Poets, in short, were venerated and dreaded in pre-Islamic times
chiefly, if not solely, because of the magical release of supernatural
power they commanded against their enemy, whether personal or
tribal.

There is a certain respect in which the poetic use of language
presents a striking similarity, both in nature and structure, to the
prophetic speech which I have described above, for in the ease of a

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poet as in that of a prophet, the word uttered should form an objec-
tive entity — a sprachwerk. The words he utters should be memorized
exactly as they fall from his lips and transmitted to others in the
original form. Springing from a supernatural source, his words also
should go beyond him (A-+B-+C). But launched against C, the poet’s
enemy, his sprachwerk is no longer a linguistic phenomenon in the
proper sense of the word; it is rather a magical phenomenon; the
poet’s speech is here a magical force that works upon C, binds him
up, and destroys him.

The same was true of the jay ‘-style of soothsayers. As a true
poet could handle rajaz poetry in a destructive way, so a real
soothsayer was able to handle saj '-prose in such a way that he could
mortally wound his enemy by the magical power of the rhyme. The
magical words uttered by a competent soothsayer are often compared
in old Arabic literature to deadly arrows shot by night which fly
unseen by their victims; the verb most frequently used in such
contexts is rama which means ‘shooting’. They are also compared to
sharp, cutting spears that are poisonous, that inflict wounds from
which the victims can scarcely hope to recover. What made these
rhymed words most dangerous was that these curses and counter-
curses, once released, had an uncontrollable activity of their own, and
nobody, even the poet or the soothsayer himself who had released
them could restrain the malignant and destructive forces thus
released. The qawafi once said exercised an enduring and unrestrai-
nable magical power.

It is evident that the Qur’anic Revelation had nothing at all to do
this kind of release of magical power. Saj ', as we have seen, had two
different aspects in the pre-Islamic age: it was, on the one hand, the
language of inspiration: all supernatural inspiration, whatever its
source, took linguistically this form. It was, on the other hand, a
particular use of language for releasing the magical power contained
in the words. This second aspect completely disappears in the
Qur’anic usage of the rhyme-words, al-qawaft. I have already shown
on several occasions 40 that in the Qur’an many of the old pre-Islamic
words and concepts are used with entirely new connotations; they
have been adjusted to an entirely new conceptual framework. Old
concepts arc there, but they have undergone a drastic semantic trans-
formation by having been put into a new system of values. Some-
thing similar happened to saj': the old traditional form of

1 99

supernatural communication is used, but it is used as a vehicle for
conveying a new content. This is my answer to whether the Qur’anic
style is saj' or not, and if it is, then how we should understand this
fact in terms of the fundamental difference between Jdhiliyyah and
Islam. The form is still there; but it is now a pure form of super-
natural inspiration. It is not used for the purpose of releasing the
magical power of words, nor is it a form in which to couch
‘prophecy’ in the sense of foretelling future events.

IV. Revelation in Arabic

In what precedes we have been concerned with the parole aspect of
Revelation, that is to say, with the problem of the Qur’anic concept
of Revelation as a ‘speech’ phenomenon. It is time now we turned to
its langue aspect.

Langue is, as already noted, a system of verbal signs recognized
by common consent as the means of communication among all indi-
viduals belonging to one community. It is in this sense a social fact,
fait social as defined by Durkheim in his sociology. It is a symbolic
system peculiar to a community, to which every member of the
community must resort in talking with others if he wishes at all to
make himself understood. There can be no linguistic communication
less the two persons involved in speech ( kalam ) resort to the same
system of signs.

The Qur’an shows the clearest consciousness of this fact, and it
possesses most evidently the concept of language understood in the
sense of this modem technical term langue. The Qur’an bases its
conception of Revelation and prophetic mission on this very idea. It
starts from the recognition of the fact that each ‘people’ ( qawm ) has
its own langue, and it attaches a great significance to this fact in
regard to the phenomenon of prophetic mission. Thus in the Surah
Ibrahim we read:

We never send an Apostle except with the language (i.e. langucj

of his people, so that he might make the message intelligible.

IbrdhTm , 14:4

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God and Man in the Qur’an

As the peoples of the world differ in color, so they differ in
language. 41 And no adequate understanding, i.e., communication, is
possible where there is no common language. 42

And, we are told, this is why an Arabic speaking Prophet is now
sent to Arabs with an Arabic Revelation:

We have sent this down as an Arabic Qur'an (qur’anan
‘arabiyyan) that you may understand .

Hajj, 22:2

■^4* r Jv— ^ ^ 0 P ^ j 4ji^

^ ^ " * / /

Verily this is the revelation of the Lord of the Universe, which
the Trustworthy Spirit (i.e. Gabriel) has brought down upon thy
heart, so thou mayest be one of the warners, in clear Arabic
language (bi lisanin ’ arabiyyin mubinin).

Shu’ara’, 26:192-195

Just as Moses was given a Book in his language, so now the
Arabian Prophet is given a book in the Arabic language 43
(i lisanan ’arabiyyan).

For if God made His revelation in some non-Arabic language,
then the people would never believe, there being no understanding
at all.

dJUaj I y. '■ f ju ole. J* aLl* >- y . yv

4U>

J

If we had made it a Qur’an in some non-Arabic language
(a ‘jamiyyan) they would say: Why are not its verses made intel-
ligible? Is it non-Arabic (a’jamiyyun) and Arabic (‘ arabiyyun )?
(i.e., a non-Arabic revelation given to an Arabian prophet?).

Fussilat, 41:44

Likewise if God should reveal this Arabic Qur’an to a non-Arab
prophet and let him recite it in Arabic to his people, who arc of

Linguistic Communication 20 1

course incapable understanding it, they would never believe in him

•>al ji3 f I AilJjj jJj

^ ^ * L ' y 1 ' L. ^ ^ *lc

Had We sent this down upon some non-Arabian (prophet), ana

had he recited it to them (in Arabic), they would not have

believed in it.

Al-Shu ‘ara ’, 26:189 [199],

All these verses are, as we see, based on the view that each
community has its own language, and that there is an inseparable tic
between a community and its language. And this is tantamount to
saying that the Qur’an has the concept of langue in the modem
technical sense of the word. This concept is in the Qur’an signified
by the word lisan (tongue).

The Qur’an itself gives a sure indication that a malicious rumor
was being circulated among the Arabs at that time that the Qur’an
was not a divine revelation, that, in reality, there was a man
behind Muhammad, a man versed in the Jewish and Christian
scriptures, who was teaching him what to say under the name of
Revelation. Al-Tabar! mentions several Christian slaves of foreign
origin whose names were on the lips of the Kafirs who were
spreading this rumor. 44

However — the Qur’an argues against this accusation — the native
language (lisan) of the man to whom they attribute all this is non-
Arabic (a’jamf), while this is a clear Arabic language (lisanun
’arabiyyun mubmun), the implication being that anyone whose
language is not Arabic would be absolutely incapable of teaching
Muhammad what to say in pure Arabic.

This and some other verses which I have just quoted have
brought to our attention a very important word a’jamf. We will do
well to discuss this problem in terms of the basic contrast between
‘Arab and ‘Ajam. In the eyes the ancient Arabs all the peoples of the
known world were divisible into two categories: the Arabs and the
non- Arabs. In the latter category all the non- Arab peoples known to
them were simply lumped together without any distinction. These two
concepts were not exclusively linguistic, because blood, i.e. race, also
played an important role, particularly in the concept of ’Arab. But
the most decisive factor was undoubtedly language. This is evidenced

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203

by the fact that even a man of pure Arab origin, if he was not able
to speak Arabic properly, was very often called ajamf.

This, by the way, has led some of the authorities to the view that
there is a fine distinction between ajamf (or ‘ajam) and ‘ajamf. The
former means, according to this view, a man who is incapable of
expressing himself correctly and clearly, even if he be a real Arab
racially, while the latter means a man, who racially belongs to a non-
Arab people without any regard as to whether he speaks Arabic well
or not. However not all lexicographers agree to this view.

In any case, it is certain that in Jdhiliyyah the root ‘JM had a
very wide range of application. The basic meaning seems to have
been the extreme obscurity of one’s speech, whether it is just a
temporary casual state or a permanent state due to one’s being a
foreigner. The following verse by al-Husayn b. al-Human is very
interesting in this respect.

And they said: Observe well, can you see between Darij and the rainpit
of Akuff anyone crying for help that is not voiceless (a jam)l 4S

Here ajam means a man who has lost his voice as a result of
having been crying for help so long and in vain. And of course this
extreme obscurity of speech, when it goes to its utmost limit,
coincides with perfect silence. And the verb istajama was used just
for this meaning.

We have for example in the Hadfth : Istajamat ‘alay-hi
qira’atuhu 46 which means literally “His reading or recitation (of the
Holy Book) became silent against him” i.e. the man was overcome
by drowsiness while he was reciting the Book and could not continue
reading it. This usage of the verb is also very old, and examples are
found in pre-Islamic poetry.

Finally, the idea of linguistic obscurity may take another direc-
tion: animals, cattle and the brutes are called ajam . I will give only
one simple example from the Hadfth : al-'ajma’u jurhu-ha jubarun 41
The word al- ‘ajmd ’ is the feminine form of a jam , meaning bahfmah
(‘animal’). The meaning of the Hadfth itself is: As to the brutes,
injury (including death) caused by them is jubdr (/.&, bloodshed
which docs not deserve punishment): that is to say, no vengeance

should be taken for any injury caused by the brutes.

These examples will be enough to show that anybody, or
anything that is incapable of speaking in a proper human way is
ajam. This also shows at the same time that the term ajam or ‘ ajam
was originally a pejorative term: in other words, it implied a
disparaging and contemptuous attitude on the part of the Arabs
towards those who could not speak Arabic, which was in their eyes
the richest, the most beautiful, and the most perfect language in the
whole world. To be unable to speak this perfect language was, for
them, almost equivalent to being bom speechless.

The same depreciating attitude towards peoples incapable of
speaking Arabic underlies the usage of the onomatopoeic word
timtim , which is often used in reference to the language of the Abys-
sinians (timtim habashl , “an Ethiopean Timtim” or tamatim sud ,
“black Timtims”).

It is surprising that in the midst of such a world the Qur’an took
a fair and impartial attitude towards this problem. It did not see any
natural superiority of the Arabic language over non- Arabic languages.
It is true that by the rise of Islam a really unique position was
assigned to Arabic as the langauge of Divine Revelation. But this was
not, properly speaking, intended to be the open declaration of the
superiority of Arabic. Nor is there, for that matter, a declaration in
the Qur’an of the racial superiority of the Arabs. For the famous
verse quoted above (3:106 [110]) which runs, “You are the best
community that has been raised up for mankind” can only refer
contextually to the religious community of Muslims as distinguished
from other communities of the People of Scripture and not to the
Arabs as a nation.

The Qur’anic view of this problem is based on the very clear
cultural consciousness that each nation has its own language, and
Arabic is the language of the Arabs, and it is, in this capacity, only
one of many languages. If God chose this language, it was not for its
intrinsic value as a language but simply for its usefulness, that is
because the message was addressed primarily to the Arabic speaking
people. We see the Qur’an itself declaring again and again that this
Book was revealed in Arabic simply in order to facilitate the under-
standing. “Wc have sent this down in Arabic so that you might
understand" ( 12:2).

And this corresponds to the more general Islamic attitude

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205

towards the problem of racial difference. In the very famous Surah
49:13 as well as in Muhammad’s farewell speech it is explicitly
stated that in Islam all men, whether Arabs or non-Arabs, are
perfectly equal.

Where does this fundamental Qur’anic attitude come from? In
order to account for this seemingly strange fact we have only to
recall what was said above regarding the cultural situation in which
the Arabs were living at the time when Islam was bom among them.

Arabia at that time was not a closed world; on the contrary, it
was an open world in lively contact with other peoples speaking
different languages with widely different cultural traditions.

Roughly speaking, the Arabs of that age may be divided into
two different categories or types: one was the pure, genuine Bedouin
type who lived in a closed society, conservative, traditionalist,
reluctant to admit anything new into their mode of living and mode
of thinking, and the other was a more enlightened sort, widely open
to other forms of life and thought than their own, ready to accept or
even ready to go out of their tribal society in search of new and
higher cultural values.

The first type of Arabs were the real children of the desert,
living strictly within the narrow limits of the tribal structure of
society, living in the tribe, with the tribe, and for the tribe. The very
basis of their sentiments, emotions and thoughts was essentially tribal.
Of course even they had to come into close contact with foreigners
if only for the reason that the wine-dealers were mostly Christians,
Jews and Persians, and they were people who could not imagine life
without wine-drinking, and we know from their poetry that they were
familiar also with the devout and meditative life of the Syrian
Christian monks who lived here and there in the midst of the desert
and whose solitary lamps lit in the darkness served as guides to
travellers by night. And yet on the whole the Bedouins were far more
concerned with themselves than with other nations. Their interest was
almost exclusively centered around their tribal affairs.

Compared with this genuine Bedouin type, the second type was
a far enlightened one — the class of cosmopolitans of that age. And
the Jahiliyyah produced a great number of them, among whom we
find some of the greatest names in the history of Arabic literature
like LabTd, al-A‘sha, al-Nabighah, etc .

Of course, these were also, at bottom, tribal Bedouins as regards

their mode of life, their mode of thinking, and mode of reaction in
general. So it is but natural that we should find them sharing with the
first type many, or even most, of the mental traits which may be
considered typically Bedouin. And it need cause no surprise if wc
find also many border-line cases, or overlapping areas between the
two classes. Thus, to take one telling example, the poet al-Nabighah,
who displayed a genuine Bedouin-ness in his thinking and expression,
was also an outstanding figure in this second class.

And yet, as a whole, there is one remarkable feature which
draws a clear line of demarcation between the purely tribal Bedouin
type and the cosmopolitan type. Those who fell under this second
category lived on an international level: they had a mind open to all
the foreign cultures and peoples that surrounded them, that had even
infiltrated deep into the Arabian Peninsula. They were the intellec-
tuals of the age, who breathed an enlighened air, and whose
intellectual horizon was not at all limited to the narrow confines of
Arabia; they left their souls free to be influenced culturally by the
surrounding peoples with a far higher degree of civilization. They
had enough curiosity to venture into unknown worlds, leam new
ideas, and assimilate them. Unlike the first type, their minds were not
at all confined to the tribal matters.

We see a typical example of this category in the poet al-A‘sha
al-Akbar who travelled all through the peninsula from North to
South, went over its border and visited Jerusalem and Homs, went to
Iraq, and even crossed Iraq into the Sassanian Empire of Persia and
brought back from there a number of Persian words and concepts,
which he put into his poetry together with some Christian ideas
which he had learned from the people of the kingdom of Hlrah. He
was so much interested in, and influenced by, the things he saw
outside of Arabia that he almost became a Christian in his view of
life and world outlook. He seems even to have travelled to Ethiopia
in search of new ideas.

The state of affairs just described will make us understand
why, contrary to our naive expectation, we do not find in the Qur’an
a declaration of the natural superiority of the Arabic language. The
Prophet Muhammad as a man belonged to this second type of Arabs,
and the Qur’anic outlook over the surrounding world was also
evidently of this second type, for it was based on the recognition of
the existence of various nations and various communities on the

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Linguistic Communication

207

earth. The spirit of the Qur’an, in this respect, was a definite and
daring break with the old tribal spirit so characteristic of the
Bedouin Arabs.

The world in which the Prophet began to develop a new
religious activity was not a closed tribal society; it was an open world
of lively cultural contact and cultural competition among a number
of different nations. The level of cultural consciousness on which the
Qur’an worked upon the religious feeling of the Arabs was much
higher than that of the Bedouins of the desert.

We must recall in this connection the above-cited verses 48 of the
Qur’an, in which a deep distrust is manifested in the Bedouin
mentality as regards religious matters.

In other places we are told that the Bedouins are the most
difficult people to handle in the matter of religion and belief. They
are stubborn, obstinate, haughty and arrogant; and the vainglory pre-
vents them from acquiring the virtue of humbleness which, however,
is the very gist of the religious mind as Islam understands- it.

All the evidence, in short, points to the fact that the cultural and
spiritual sphere in which the Arabian Prophet lived and worked was
essentially different from, and even diametrically opposed, in certain
important respects, to the world in which the Bedouins lived. The
Bedouins of the desert stood far below the level of cultural
consciousness at which Islam addressed itself to the Arabic speaking
people. And on this high level of world conception, the Arabs were
after all but one among many different peoples, and the Arabic
language, too, was one of many different languages.

Thus we see why the Qur’an, in spite of the constant emphasis
it places on its being in Arabic, does not consider itself a manifesto
of the superiority of this language. Each community has its own
language. So when God sent down His Revelation to the Israelites in
the form of the Torah, He chose Hebrew as the vehicle of His
message, because it was the language of that community. The same
is true of other Revelations sent to other nations: each people of
Scripture had their own kitab in the language of the community.
Likewise, all Messengers who were raised before Muhammad
addressed each of his people (qawm) in their particular language. So
it is now with Muhammad. Since he is primarily an Arabian prophet
and Arabian apostle he is sent with a kitab in Arabic. Otherwise,
there would be no reason why the Arabic language should be

preferred to other languages.

This central idea of the Qur’an was quite in keeping with the
broad world outlook which I have just described in some detail
However this was not the way in which the Arabs, or to be more
correct the Arab Muslims, understood the whole matter. The evident
fact that nowhere in the Qur’an was the superiority of Arabic per se
stated was simply ignored by them, who had always been so proud
of their Arab-ness and their Arabic language.

Quite naturally, the fact that the Qur’an was revealed in the
Arabic language was taken by the Arabs as the strongest evidence
that it was superior to all other languages. If Arabic was chosen by
God Himself for the vehicle of Revelation, it was not for any prag-
matic usefulness but rather for the intrinsic virtue of this language
qua language. Arabic was now the sacred language. And sooner or
later the non-Arab Muslims also had to admit, because of their ardor
and veneration for the Sacred Book, the natural superiority of this
language. And thus the Arabic language qua language ended by
assuming a high religious value. This process is admirably well
depicted with all its theological implications by Fakhr al-Dm al-RazT
in his “Great Commentary”, MafatTh al-Ghayb.

This natural tendency of the Arabs, continuing to be dominant
all through the Umayyad period, was pushed to its extreme and took
on even an emotive nationalistic aspect in the Abbasid period when
the Arab ‘Asabiyyah was faced with the Persian Shu'ubiyyah which
claimed the incomparable superiority of the Persian culture in Islam,
including the Persian language, over things Arab.

This movement which arose in the second and third centuries of
Islamic history struck a fatal blow at the already declining Arab
supremacy in Islam. The people who represented Shu'ubiyyah not
only declared openly that all Muslims were completely equal, irres-
pective of race, nationality and lineage — this much was in complete
accordance with the Qur’anic teaching — but went further and said
that the non-Arabs were far superior to the Arabs in every respect,
who were nothing but poor barbarians of the desert with no cultural
background at all, and that all that was significant in Islamic culture
went back to non-Arab sources.

The leaders of the Shu'uhiyyah revolt against the Arabs were
naturally mostly Persians, but since the reign of the Caliph al-
Mulawakkil they were joined by the Turks too. Even the last

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God and Man in the Qur’an

stronghold of the Arabs, i.e., the Arabic language which as I have
said, had been raised to sanctity, could not remain safe from the
vehement attacks of the Shu'ubiyyah. Enthusiastic partisans made
their utmost to bring down the Arabic language from its sacred
throne and run into the opposite extreme of extolling non-Arabic
languages like Greek, Persian and Indian as far more perfect than
Arabic, both as a tool of logical thinking and as a means of
expression for poetic sentiments and emotions.

This is indeed an extremely interesting and important phase of
the history of Islamic culture. But of course the problem lies beyond
the confines of the present study.

V. Prayer (Al-Du‘a’)

In the last section we have analyzed the concept of Revelation in the
Qur’an. The long and short of it is that wahy in its narrow — properly
religious — sense is a particular sort of verbal communication that
takes place between God and man in the descending direction, from
God to man. God addresses His words directly to man: directly to the
Prophet, and indirectly to mankind in general.

| God |

(wahy) (du’a)

| man~~|

But this linguistic relation between God and man is not
unilateral. In other words, instead of remaining always passive, man
on his part sometimes takes the initiative in establishing a verbal
relation with God and tries to communicate with Him by means of
linguistic signs. The result is a phenomenon which structurally
corresponds to Revelation in that the latter is a direct verbal
communication in the ascending direction,* from man to God. Like
Revelation, this also can occur only in a very special form under
unusual conditions. Normally, man has at his disposal no means of
addressing God directly, if only for the reason that this would violate

Linguistic Communication

209

the most fundamental principle of language that there should be an
ontological equality between the two parties in order that a exchange
of words might occur. Only in an extraordinary situation, when man
finds himself in an unusual, non-daily state of mind, when for some
reason or other his mind has been strained almost to a breaking point,
is he in a position to address words directly to God. In such a
situation, man can no longer be a man in an ordinary sense; he is as
al-Kirmanl says in the passage quoted above, necessarily transformed
into something above himself. This type of linguistic event in a non-
daily situation is du‘a’ which is usually translated ‘prayer’. The
immediate cause which induces man to use language in this way may
differ from case to case. It may be deep and overbrimming piety
towards God. Or it may be — and as a matter of fact it is the most
usual case — imminent danger of death. We see in the Qur’an even
the unbelieving pagans calling upon God in an emergency “making
their faith sincere”.

lJl* Clio f

* 1 t L

w yj? Ji LLP Ju J Lj jfi 0 CA LiJo

When some misfortune visits a man , he calls upon Us for help
(da ‘a-na), reclining on his side , or sitting, or standing. But
when We have removed misfortune he goes his way as if he had
never called upon Us for help because of the misfortune that
visited him.

Yunus , 10:13 [12]

^ -u $ ..*

y jiiii ii

(At the last moment when they feel certain of their death by
shipwreck) they call upon God for help (da < a), making their
religion sincere : If thou deliverest us from this, we shall truly be
of the thankful Z 49

Yunus , 10:23 [22]

In any case it is clear that this kind of linguistic behavior occurs
only in an extraordinary situation which puts man out of his normal
daily frame of mind. In other words, for such a thing to occur, the

210

God and Man in the Qur’an

speaker must find himself in a ‘limit situation’ as the existentialists
would say. For only in a limited situation can the human heart be
completely purified of all mundane thoughts, and accordingly the
language he speaks becomes heightened spiritually. Du ’a ’ is the most
intimate personal conversation of the heart with God that occurs only
when the human heart happens to be in such a state.

The following verse shows better than anything else this basic
relation of du'a’ with a ‘limit situation’:

iii i ipilji j' 4JLI1 ^iXe- oig&i i j

If the chastisement of God comes upon you, or the Hour (i.e. the
Last Hour) comes upon you, will you be calling upon other than
God? (Answer) if you are truthful. Nay, upon Him alone will
you be calling!

Al-An ‘am, 6:40-41

When this original spiritual tension becomes somewhat relaxed,
and the whole thing, instead of passing away as a mere momentary
phenomenon, transforms itself into a fixed, deep-rooted pious habit,
then du'a’ becomes synonymous with ‘ibadah (worshipping). 50

Say : I am forbidden to worship (a *buda) those upon whom you
call (i.e. the idols) apart from God.

Al-An ‘am, 6:56

«'?.*' - 1 T ?i If** A a * * . f. > ? ^ ^ V

J J J-Xjji J 0 J JaJ

Drive not away those who call upon their Lord at morn and
evening, desiring His countenance.

Al-An ‘am, 6:52

°J -‘ PJ 'j JS lup j

Linguistic Communication

21 1

Set your faces in every place of worship (towards God) and call
upon Him, making your religion sincere.

Al-A ‘rdf 7:30 [29J

It may be well to recall at this point that Revelation, as I have
explained in the preceding section, is primarily designed to elicit a
human response, either positive or negative. When God sends down
his dyat, He demands man to respond to them with tasdiq and
‘belief. In like manner, the human act of du'a’ wants to be respon-
ded to by God. Man, in other words, addresses his du ‘a ’ to God in
the expectation that his wish be granted. The Divine response to the
human du ‘a ’ is signified in the Qur’an by the word istijabah meaning
literally ‘answering’, ‘being ready in response’. Semantically we may
describe this by saying that the concept of du ‘a’ stands in correlation
with that of istijabah. Unlike du'a’, which is essentially verbal,
istijabah is non-verbal.

God

Q

1

du'a

istijabah

(verbal)

(non- verba!)

mai

r

a

In the Qur’an, God Himself declares positively that He is always
ready to “answer” if only man call upon Him sincerely.

Your Lord has said: Call upon Me, and I will answer you.

Ghafir , 40:60

Moreover, the Qur’an attaches the highest importance to the
concept of istijabah , as is evident from the fact that it makes the
incapacity for istijabah one of the most salient marks of a false
god. The gods whom the Kdfirs worship apart from Allah cannot
respond to their du*d\ however much the worshippers call upon
them. They do not hear the Kdfirs ' prayer, and even if they did, they

212

21

God and Man in the Qur’an

Linguistic Communication

would not be able to answer anything. The du ‘ a of the unbelievers
goes only astray.

If you call upon them (i.e. the idols), they will not hear your
du f a, even if they heard, they would not respond (istajabu)
to you.

Fatir , 35:15 [14]

magical function of language played a tremendous role in society
But this aspect of the linguistic life of the Arabs has been explorer
long ago by Goldzieher 52 so fully and in such a scholarly way that
there is almost nothing left for us to say.

Notes

I yffe j — * Gj aLJ fL*J) 1 <ui5”* U... 1

;yi

To Him is the real du ‘a And those upon whom they call apart
from Him, do not respond (yastajlbu) to them at all, but it is as
a man stretches forth his hands towards water that it may come
to his mouth, and it will never come. The du ‘a ’ of the Kafirs
goes only astray.

Al-Ra ‘d, 13:15 [14] 51

Theoretically, this manner of using words may be considered a
variety of the ‘magical’ use of language. By classifying du'a’
(prayer) under ‘magical’ use of words, I am not implying anything
depreciatory or pejorative such as may be suggested by the asso-
ciation of the word ‘magic’ (sihr) in the Qur’an. Here the ‘magical’
must be taken as a pure technical term referring to a particular case
in which words in special situations are used in such a way that they
may produce some immediate effect on the addressee. Any words one
utters in a highly strained psychological state with the intention of
affecting one’s hearer immediately are ‘magical’ in this sense. Even
in quite ordinary, daily situations, when you use a verb in the
imperative form, you are using language in a ‘magical’ way, although
in an extremely weakened and insipid form, so insipid and
stereotyped that we do not regard it usually as ‘magical’. Still the
underlying principle is quite the same.

Magical use of language in a more technical sense is a large
class comprising besides personal ‘prayer’ addressed to God, oath-
making, swearing, imprecation, blessing, etc. In Jahiliyyah , the

1 ■ The part of this chapter which concerns the problem of Revelation in
the Qur an appeared earlier as a separate article in Studies in Medieval
Thought, Journal of the Japanese Society of Medieval Philosophy (Vol.
V, 1962) under the title of “Revelation as a Linguistic in Islam”. But
the chapter is not an exact reproduction of the article, although the
problems treated as well as the main argument remain in the nature of
the case substantially the same.

2. Al-Mu ‘allaqat, ed. Fr. Aug. Arnold (Septem Mo'allakat), Leipzig

1850, vv. 68-69. B ’

3 . Be it remarked in passing that there is in Arabic a special grammatical
means of transforming regularly such a word into a ‘two-person’ word.
It is what is generally known under the name of the third derivative
form, or the fa ‘ala- form. In contrast to akala (eat), dkala requires two
persons on the stage: somebody eats together with somebody else at the
same table.

4. al-Mufaddaliyyat, CXX, v. 28.

5. 4JL4 yil' HadTth No. 416, Musnad, vol. I, Cairo, 1949.

6. More literally: “as if their rocks contained characters” (Mu ‘allaaah

v - 2 >- ^ or

7. al-Mufaddaliyyat, XVI, v. 56. See also ‘Antarah, DTwan, p. 190, v, 7,
where we read; “(as faint) as characters on the parchments dating from
the reign of Kisra”. ^ ^ ^

8. Note that the Surah itself is entitled al-Oalam (the Pen)

9. 7:139 [143].

10. ‘Alqamah al-Fahl, from the famous ode which he composed in
competition with Imr’ al-Qays, v. 29. For Qur’anic examples of nSda
sec 7:42 [44], where the People of the Garden {ashdb al-jannah)
address words (nddd) to the People of the Fire {ashdb al-ndr) the
distance between the two groups being of course the longest
imaginable; 7:2 1 [24]; 5:53158]; 68:21-24; 63:9; 49:4, etc The only
apparent exception S0:40[4 1 ], which reads:

214

God and Man in the Qur’an

-J j* {jA jUj

“And listen on the day when the Caller (minddi) shall call (yunddi)
from a near place (makdnin qarlbin ).” But a little reflection will be
sufficient to show that precisely this combination of the seemingly
contradictory concepts produces a striking stylistic effect. For the verse
refers to a really ‘exceptional’ case. It describes the coming of the Day
of Resurrection, when the Caller, i.e. the Angel, calls all people out of
their graves to drive them to the place of Judgment. To the ears of the
dead who hear the cry, the call gives an extraordinary impression as if
somebody were calling them in a large voice from a distant place,
which is, strangely enough, so close to them.

11. Al-A'raf, 7:19 [20]; Al-Nds, 114:5-6

12. DTwdn , VI, 4.

13. I owe this methodological idea to Prof. Ernst Leisi, which he first
exposed systematically in his book Der Wort inhalt, Seine Struktur im
Deutchen und Englischen, Heidelberg, 1953.

14. Shams al-Dln Muhammad b. Yusuf b. ‘ AlT al-Kirmanl (ob. 786 A.H.),
Shark al-Bukhdrl , Vol. I, Cairo, 1939, p. 28.

15. al-Muqaddimah, ed. al-Wafi, Cairo, Vol. I, pp. 346-347, 360.

16. On the problem of linguistic magic, see my Language and Magic ,
Tokyo, 1955.

17. Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie, Erster Teil, Leiden, 1896,
pp. 1-105.

18. DTwdn, XXXIII, vv. 32-34.

19. Shahird , ‘apprentice’ — Pahlv. ashagard, Mod. Persian shagird.

20. This reminds us of the Qur’anic expression tanzll (sending down) of
the ayat — from the same root NZL — which we discussed in the
preceding chapter.

21. DTwdn , ed. Hirschfeld, London, 1910, 79, the last verse.

22. 27:36. The word majnun literally means “one possessed by a Jinrf\

23. 23:24.

24. 6:100.

25. 38:158.

26. 26:222.

27. 15:6.

28. al-Bukhan, Bab al-TawhTd.

29. Ibn Ishaq-Ibn Hisham, STrah Rasul Allah , ed. Wustenfeld, Gottingen,
1859-60, Vol. I, pp. 10-11.

30. As regards the word ittasaqa and its meaning, cf. the Qur’an, 84:18.

31. Also al-Hdqqah, 69:42.

32. Sahfh al-Bukhdrl , I, No. 2.

33. 2:91 [97].

Linguistic Communication

215

34. 81:19.

35. Here the words are put in the mouth of the Prophet Noah.

36. See for instance, 3:48 [46].

37. 75.16 [19]. Also in 20:113 [114], we meet with a similar admonition.

38. For a very detailed philological analysis of the word ndbhV in Hebrew,
see Alfred Guillaume, Prophecy and Divination , London, 1938,
Lecture III.

39. Mutatraf LXVI, II, 1 89. See for further information my Language and
Magic , 1955. pp. 130-131.

40. See for example, Structure of the Ethical Terms in the Quran ,
chapter VII.

41. 30:21 [22].

42. 18:92 [93].

43. 46:11 [12].

44. 16:105 [103].

45. al-Mufaddal iyydt, XII, v. 36.

46. 4JLp

47. j[+>r l^>- y*.

48. 49:14-15.

49. For the religious implication of the concept of ‘thankfulness’, see
Chapter 9, section I.

50. For a discussion of the meaning of this word, see the next chapter.

51. See also Ghafir , 40:53 [50].

52. In his study on the Hijd ' poetry in ancient Arabia, op. cit, pp. 1-105.

Jahiliyyah and Islam

217

CHAPTER 8

Jahiliyyah and Islam

I. Islam and the Concept of Humble Submission

In this chapter we are going to deal with the third aspect of the
fundamental relation between God and man: the Lord-servant
relation, God as the ‘Lord’ (rabb) and man as His ‘servant’ (‘ abd ).

As already noted, the conception of Allah as ‘Lord’ was not
unknown to the Jahili Arabs. Only in pre-Islamic times Allah was not
the sole, absolute Lord. There were besides Him many rabbs and
rabbahs. Islam acknowledged Him for the first time as the absolute
Sovereign, the Only Absolute Lord of the whole world.

This implied that all other things, not only ordinary human
beings, but the Prophets and even the Angels should never be
considered ‘Lords’ ( arbab ) in any sense. In 3:74 [80]; 3:171 [172],
for example, we are told that even “the angels who are near stationed
to God” (al-mala 'ikah al-muqarraburi) will not be allowed to disdain
to be His faithful and humble servants.

The establishment of the conception of Allah as the Absolute
Lord of all necessarily introduced also a radical change into the
conception of the relation between God and man. A new semantic
field was formed around this new idea, containing a number of most
important key-terms in the Qur’an.

Since God is now the Absolute Sovereign, the only possible
attitude for man to take towards Him is that of complete submission,
humbleness and humility without reserve. In short, a ‘servant’ {‘abd)
should act and behave as a ‘servant’ ( ‘abd)— hence the important

216

semantic development shown by the word ‘ibadah, which from the
original literal meaning of “serving Him as a servant”, “serving Him
as behooves a servant”, eventually has come to mean ‘worship’ and
‘cult’. This association of concepts is shown very clearly in the
following verse:

•‘Z 3 ^ j 1 a ^ :.i

Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that is between them.

So serve Him and be steadfast in His service.

Al-Tawbah, 9:68 [65]

The primary function of a servant consists naturally in serving
his master faithfully, paying constant and careful attention to the
latter’s wishes whatever he wishes, and obeying without murmuring
his commands. This is why so much importance is attached in the
Qur’an to the group of terms meaning absolute obedience, submission
and humility, like ta'ah (obedience), 1 quriut (obedience, humble-
ness), 2 khushu ' (submissiveness), 3 tadarru ‘ (self-abasement) 4 all these
stand in a sharp contrast to the attitude of stubborn refusal to obey,
symbolized in the Qur’an by the image of a “hardened heart”.

But by far the most important of all the concepts belonging in
this class is the concept of islam itself, not, of course, in the sense of
the historical, objective, religious culture known as Islam — Islam as
a result of the process of ‘reification’, to use the terminology of Dr.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith — but islam in the original sense of the
determined self-submission, self-surrendering to the Divine Will, i.e . ,
a decisive step taken by each individual person, as his own inner
personal and existential problem, towards resigning his soul to God. 5

Islam, or the verb aslama, in the sense in which it is used in the
phrase aslama wajha-hu li-Allahi , lit. “He has submitted his face to
God”, means originally and primarily that one voluntarily surrenders

1 oneself to the Divine Will putting one’s trust wholly in God. It is, in

short, the kind of unconditional self-surrender which expresses itself
verbally in a verse like this: /

I 1 ' tjj^>

And, Lord, make us submissive to thee!

Al-Baqarah , 2:122 [128]

21X

God and Man in the Qur’an

Now, what makes this concept particularly important among all
the concepts relating to humbleness and submission, is primarily of
course the fact that God Himself has chosen this as the name of the
new Arabian religion. But it is also due to the fact that Islam, as an
inner personal religious experience of each individual person, means
the occurrence of an important event that marks the initial point from
which real obedience and humbleness begin.

aslama

(A) Jahili period (B) Islamic period

It marks a decisive turning point in the life of a man, a turning point
in the religious sense which cuts his whole length of life into two
halves ( A , B ) that will henceforward stand diametrically opposed to
each other. Grammatically speaking, the verb aslama belongs to a
particular group of verbs called ‘inchoative’. In other words, instead
of denoting a permanent nature, it signifies something new that
comes into being for the first time; it marks the beginning of a new
situation, the birth of a new nature. Only in the participal form
muslim does it signify a more or less permanent attribute. But even
then the implication is that it is an attribute which has ensued from
the decisive step taken.

All the other Qur’anic terms meaning obedience and submission
are extremely vague and ambiguous in this respect. They might give
the wrong impression of obedience and humility being a natural
quality of man. They do not contain in their semantic structure the
moment of existential decision, of jumping into an unknown sphere
of life. Only the word islam implies this. A muslim in the original
sense is a man who has dared to make such a jump. Of course I am
speaking of the Muslims in the earliest period of Islam as depicted in
the Qur’an, when all the Muslims without exception, including the
Prophet himself, had been once pagans.

It is only after a man has made this decisive jump that such
concepts as ‘obedience’, ‘submission’ and ‘humility’ begin to appear
invested with a truly religious significance. The words like khushu\
tadarru ' etc . as key-terms in the Qur’an do not mean simple,
ordinary humbleness. What is meant thereby is a particular kind of
humbleness that ensues from the decisive act of islam which we have

Jahiliyyah and Islam

21‘J

just analyzed.

As I have said, the spiritual act of aslama ushers in an entirely
new period in the life of a man, and the two portions of life separated
in this way by the point of aslama are of an entirely different nature
from each other and are radically opposed to each other. If we call
the portion B ‘Islamic’, period A may be called ‘ Jahilf period of a
man. It must be kept in mind that we are now talking of the life of
an individual man. ‘Islamic’ and ‘ Jahilf do not yet designate at this
stage two consecutive historical periods, as they do in later Islam.
‘Jahiliyyah’ is still a personal quality, not the name of a historic age.
In this original sense, ‘ Jahilf cannot properly be translated as ‘pre-
Islamic’, because it means much more, as we shall see immediately.
It does not mean simply a period preceding the rise of Islam; it is
something positive, and positively opposed to ‘Islamic’.

At any rate, the life of one individual person is divided into two
entirely different parts. From now on he is a Muslim, while up till
now he has been a JdhiL What does this mean? This is the main
problem which will occupy our attention in the following pages.

A man’s being a Muslim implies many different things, but from
the specific point of view which is ours now, it means primarily that
he is a man who has abandoned all his selfishness, all pride in human
power, and stands humbled, meek and submissive as a ‘servant’
( ‘abd) before God who is his Lord (rabb) and Master. This 'abd - ness
is the distinguishing feature of the portion B in the above diagram..

The portion A implies all the personal qualities that are contrary
to this absolute submissiveness and humility, all those qualities that
prevent man from being submissive and humble to God. Pride in
human power, limitless self-confidence, sense of absolute indepen-
dence, the unshakable determination not to bow before any authority,
whether human or divine — in short, all that is contrary to 'abd- ness.
Historically, too, this was one of the most characteristic traits of the
pre-Islamic Arab mind.

In fact, the pre-Islamic Arabs were notorious for th ; e personal
qualities which have just been mentioned. But far from being moral
defects, these represented in their eyes the highest ideal of human
virtue, the noblest virtue of a man really worthy of the name of
‘man’, a! fad For these qualities were all based on, and various

220

God and Man in the Qur’an

Jahiliyyah and Islam

221

manifestation of, the sense of ‘honor’ (' ird) which was deep-rooted
in their mentality, and which was, indeed, the highest regulating
principle of their conduct.

This prominent Jahilf quality was variously known as anafah ,
literally ‘high-nosed-ness’, iba ’ (refusal, i.e. to allow one’s honor
sullied), hamiyyah (zeal for defending what one has to defend) — a
word which occurs in the Qur’an (48:26) precisely in this sense in the
particular combination of hamiyyah al-jdhiliyyah (the hamiyyah
which is characteristic of the jahiliyyah) and haffzah “guarding
jealously one’s honor”. All these words were in use then to mean the
noble quality of a noble man who would proudly refuse to accept
anything whatsoever that might degrade his personal dignity, a fierce
passionate nature to hurl back with scorn anything which might make
him feel humbled and humiliated even in the slightest way.

This fiery spirit of resistance which made man refuse resolutely
to submit and surrender to the will of any other man, and to sully
thereby his honor was indeed the real fountain-head of almost all
Jahilf human values. This spirit found its expression in various forms
everywhere in pre-Islamic poetry. Here is an example which expre-
sses it in the simplest and most straightforward way:

fy aSvij Js- Jb

We refuse resolutely to submit to another’s direction, whoever he may
be! On the contrary, we make all men obey our directions, and that
without bit and bridle. 6

It is worthy of note that the word with which the verse begins,
na ' bd , comes from the verb aba which corresponds to the above-
mentioned verbal noun iba ’ (refusing proudly). A man characterized
by this haughty spirit of resistance to anything that might tarnish his
‘honor’ was called ably. An ably was a man who could never
acquiesce in being abased by anybody else, and even never allowed
any of those who happened to be under his protection to be abased,
as Ta’abbata Sharran says in the verse quoted earlier in connection
with the problem of human destiny.

At this haughty spirit of Jahiliyyah Islam struck a mortal blow.
Or perhaps we should rather say that Islam touched on the sore point
of the mentality of the Jahilf Arabs. For it demanded of them, before

anything else, to abandon before the One and Only king of the whole
world all pride in human power, the feeling of self-sufficiency, which
the Qur’an called istighna ’ and tughyan — from the verb taghd
meaning a torrent of water rising high to the degree of overflowing
(96:6-7), and to feel really humble and submissive to a Will which
presides over the whole universe as the supreme Lord.

No, indeed, man tends to be insolent (yatgha) because he thinks
himself self-sufficient ( istaghnaj .

Al- Alaq, 96:6-7 7

From the Islamic point of view, everyone is a servant ( ‘ab d) of
this Lord, and it is his natural duty to manifest his ‘abd- ness in all
his actions and sayings, to serve his great Lord with unbounded
humbleness and docility. From the point of view of a Jahilf man,
however, no one is entitled to demand of him such a thing; he is the
Lord of himself. Humble and docile submission to whomsoever it
may be, is in his eyes simple servitude — i.e. f abd- ness in the sense
of being an abject slave as opposed to a free-born Arab (hurr).

Again from the Islamic point of view this refusal of self-
surrender on the part of Jahilf Arabs was nothing but a manifestation
of human presumptuousness, insolence and arrogance caused by
man’s ignorance of himself and of God. This is why in the Qur’an
the word istikbar (to be haughty) — or more literally, “to consider
oneself great” — and its synonyms play such an important role in the
critical description of the attitude of the Kafirs. In fact, the over-
bearing haughtiness and the mocking attitude that ensues from it arc
described minutely and vividly everywhere in the Qur’an as the most
characteristic feature of the pagan Arabs.

This is, in short, the spirit of the Jahiliyyah to which the Qur’an
refers in the Surah al-Fath.

/If ** * ^ 0 Y

When the Kafirs set up in their hearts the hamiyyah, that
hamiyyah so, characteristic of the Jdhil-ness.

Al-Fath , 48:26

222

God and Man fn the Qur’an

Jahiliyyah and Islam

22 I

Thus we see here before our eyes another basic conceptual
conflict between two irreconcilable principles: jahiliyyah on the one
hand, and is lam on the other, that is, haughtiness, arrogance and
insolence on the one hand, and humbleness and submission on the
other, towards one and the same object — Allah. And this is
undoubtedly the most ‘dramatic’ moment of the whole Qur’anic
divina commedia.

It is important to remark in this connection that this radical
opposition of jahiliyyah and islam, or of jahil on the one hand and
muslim or mu ’min on the other, was quite a new situation brought
about by the rise of Islam in Arabia, as is easy to see from the very
fact that the concept of muslim or mu ’min itself in the religious sense
had not been existent in pre-Islamic times.

In pre-Islamic times, jahil (or jahl) was sharply opposed to a
different concept, viz., halfm (or hilm). But again the problem is very
delicate because this concept of hilm, although quite a different
concept from islam, is not so different as to have nothing in common
with it. On the contrary, there is even a certain respect in which we
might regard it as the pre-religious, pre-Islamic form of the concept
of islam itself. This is shown by the fact that when the new religion
replaced the old concept of halim by the new concept of muslim or
mu’min, the replacement took place gradually and as a natural
process, so to speak, without causing, in this respect, any abrupt
break with the old Arabian ethics. How, then, was hilm replaced
smoothly by the new concept of Islam? How does this latter concept
link up historically with that of hilm, as a new interpretation of an
old concept? This will be our next problem.

It is a commonplace today among the Orientalists that jahl was
not in pre-Islamic times contrary of ‘ilm — ‘ignorance’ as opposed to
‘knowledge’ — as it had been generally believed before Goldzieher
published his now famous paper on this problem. 8

The major points of his thesis have been summarized by many
Western writers on the origin of Islam in Arabia, 9 and I myself have
referred to this article in my book on the Structure of the Ethical
Terms and have examined there carefully all the relevant passages in
the Qur’an in which the root JHL appears under various forms. It
would be wearisome to go over again what has so often been disc-
ussed. Here I shall take up this problem from a somewhat different
angle, trying al the same time, if possible, to push further ahead the

analysis of the conceptual pair: jahl and hilm.

In Islam — or to be more exact, in the Qur’an— jahiliyyah is a
religious term in the negative sense, because it is the very basis on
which the kufr of the Kafirs is based. In fact, it was this haughty
spirit of independence, this keenest sense of honor which refused to
bow before any authority, be it human or divine, that incited the
Kafirs to set up the most determined opposition against the new
religion. They'aM-ness was in short, the very root and source oikuj'r.

In pre-Islamic times the word had no religious connotation at all.
Jahl was simply a human, personal feature; only it was a very
characteristic one. It was really something quite typical of the pre-
Islamic Arabs. So much so that when we read pre-Islamic poetry, it
is, together with its counterpart hilm, one of those concepts that we
meet with almost at every step. Unless we know the exact meaning
of this pair of words, jahl and hilm, we cannot hope to understand
the psychological make-up of the ancient Arabs, and, consequently,
in many cases we would not be able to understand why they acted
and reacted as they did, for we would not see the driving motive
underlying their peculiar behavior pattern.

The concept of jahl being so characteristic of the psychology of
the pre-Islamic Arabs it is but natural that the word should occur
very frequently in Jahill poetry. And it is comparatively easy to
isolate the basic semantic elements of this word, if we examine care-
fully the numerous instances of its usage in pre-Islamic literature,
applying to them the method of contextual analysis.

The major semantic constituents of this concept which my own
analysis has isolated may conveniently be stated in a summary form
as follows.

1 — The first and the most conspicuous feature of the human
nature signified by the word jahl — or rather we should perhaps say
the root JHL, for jahl is merely one of the many possible forms
under which the root JHL appears — concerns a particular behavior
pattern.

Jahl is the typical behavior pattern of a hot-blooded impetuous
man, who tends to lose his self-control on the slightest provocation,
and consequently to act recklessly, driven by an uncontrolable blind
passion, without reflecting on the disastrous consequence this
behavior might lead to It is the behavior pattern peculiar to a man

224

God and Man in the Qur’an

Jahiliyyah and Islam

225

of an extremely touchy and passionate nature, who has no control of
his own feelings and emotions, and who, therefore, easily surrenders
himself to the dictates of violent passions, losing the sense of what
is right and what is wrong.

It is to this aspect of jahl that the concept of hilm is primarily
opposed. Hilm is the nature of a man who is able to stop the outburst
of this very jahl. Halim is a man who knows how to smother his
feelings, to overcome his own blind passions and to remain tranquil
and undisturbed whatever happens to him, however much he may be
provoked.

If jahl is a burning flame of anger — and the image is actually
used by Jahili poets: ihtidam 10 (the verb ihtadama) meaning “to bum
with a furious flame and scorching heat ” — hilm is calmness, balanced
mind,- self-control, and steadiness of judgment.

This contrast between jahl and hilm found its expression in a
very interesting metaphor in a verse by ‘ Amr b. Ahmar al-BahilT. The
poet was a Jahili , who later embraced Islam.

(Ji«; ‘Ji Ijl Uj*- jsyji I (Jwj

Many the large (jillah ) black cooking pots (duhm, lit.: black ones)
which our maid-servants take good care of ( tusadi-ha , lit.: flatter and
cajole them); once their belly (i.e. the content of the pots) becomes
jahil (i.e., boils up), it will never become halim (i.e. calm down). 11

The first thing that attracts our attention in this verse is that it
describes the cooking pots of the poet’s tribe that continue boiling
and seething endlessly as if they would never calm down, a very
impressive symbol of wealth and limitless hospitality. The poet
produces an unusual effect by describing the pots as if they were
human beings, and this by ascribing to them metaphorically, two
important human qualities: jahl and hilm. For our present purpose,
this verse is interesting because this metaphor of a large black
seething pot over a burning fire makes us understand better than any
lengthy prosaic description the nature of the concept of jahl and of
its opposite hilm.

At the same time this metaphor makes us see how appropriate
the word jahil is in the Qur’an in the mouth of Joseph in Egypt in
describing the dangerous temptation to which he almost yielded.

% a ^ y U-f ^

' K i.,' ti -* 3-' 1 *f, - * f *v.*> -

“O my Lord!" he cries, "/ would sooner be cast into prison
than do that which these women urge me to do. Yet if Thou
turnest not from me their temptation, I shall surrender myself to
the surge of lust (asbu) for them and so become a jahil

Yusuf 12:33

The verb saba (asbu) is worthy of note in this context. In pre-
Islamic literature, it is, so to speak, a technical term in common use
in love-poetry for a rushing surge of youthful passion. It means that
you are overwhelmed by an unbridled passion that surges up in your
heart, disturbs your balance of mind, makes you lose the sense of
right and wrong, and drives you towards folly. The following verse
by al-Mukhabbal is very illuminating in this respect because it shows
the close conceptual relation that exists between saba — which is, as
we know from the Qur’anic verse just cited, nothing other than a
different name of jahl — and hilm.' 2

jjb- l Zjs j S-'tj

Suddenly the image of Rabab came back to his memory, and indeed
the remembrance of her is an illness. It made him succumb to a
surging passion of love, and once a man has succumbed to the blind
passion of love, there can be no place in him for hilm.

The same negative combination of hilm with saba is seen in the
next verse from the same Diwan : 13

Those nights when she tried to provoke passion in the heart of a grave
and serious man with her coquetry.

With this, I think a general idea has been given of what kind of
a man a jdhil is, and what kind of a man a halim. Jahl, wc have
seen, is a behavior pattern peculiar to a hot-blooded man who tends

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227

to lose his temper at the slightest provocation and make himself
uncontrolable. At this stage, it has nothing at all to do with the
concept of ‘ignorance’. A halfm is a man who knows how to over-
come his surging emotions and passions, who is able to keep himself
tranquil and unperturbed under provocation.

I must add one more important remark regarding the meaning
structure of halfm and hilm. The explanation I have just given may
convey the wrong impression that hilm were a passive quality,
something that would remind one of the natural meekness of a lamb.
On the contrary, it is a positive and active power of the soul that is
strong enough to curb her own impetuosity that may drive the man
headlong to folly, and calm it down to patience and forbearance. It
is a sign of the power and superiority of the mind.

There can be no hilm where there is no power. It is essentially
a quality of a man who governs and dominates others, and not of
those who are governed and dominated. A naturally weak and
powerless person is never called halfm, however much he calms
down his anger when insulted; he is ‘weak’ simply. Halfm is a man
who possesses power, power to go to all kinds of violence when
provoked and yet possesses, at the same time, the power to restrain
himself from doing violence.

Here the poet, Salim b. Wabisah, after describing in detail how
he always tries and succeeds to check his fits of anger and to keep
himself from rushing to acts of violence, whatever those who envy
him and hate him do and say against him, reflects and says proudly:

Verily, to take the attitude of humility consciously is a kind of hilm ,
and in fact hilm based on power (and not coming from ‘q/'z, ‘natural
weakness’) is a virtue characteristic of the nobleness of the soul. 14

In this verse we see clearly stated that the true hilm is a
‘conscious’ effort to keep oneself calm despite the fact that one is
fully in possession of qudrah , ‘power’ (to strike back). Halfm is a
man who forgives his enemy and shows gentleness ‘from above’,
from a superior position. This will make us understand the true
meaning of the word halfm as applied to Allah in the Qur’an. 15 God

forgives sins committed by men and is gentle, but it is not a simple
gentleness; it is a gentleness based on power, forbearance based on
calm wisdom, which is possible only because it is coupled with an
infinite power. It suggests, therefore, that there is always in the
background the possibility of a dreadful and drastic punishment.

It is clear, then, that hilm is a particular behavior pattern backed
by a clear consciousness of one’s own superiority and power. It is not
a sign of ‘natural weakness’, *ajz\ it is’a sign of natural ‘power’
0 qudrah ). That is why the concept of hilm is so closely associated
with waqar meaning the “dignity of manner and deportment”.

Since hilm is such a particular kind of tranquility which conceals
within it a tremendous power, highly compressed inner energy, it is
very difficult for it not to make itself manifest in a physical way, in
deportment and outward attitude. This bodily manifestation of hilm
is waqar , “grave and dignified bearing” — waqar al-hilm {waqar of
hilm ) as it is often called. Khalaf b. Khallfah, a famous poet of the
Umayyad period gives us an interesting example.

All of them show a remarkable of hilm so much so that even a small
boy among them looks as if he were a man of mature age because of
his natural dignity.

This is of course an exaggeration, but it brings out very well an
important aspect of the concept of hilm.

Waqar is a value word. That is to say, the word represents the
outward attitude of a halfm as something imposing and admirable.
The same ‘dignified bearing’ may also be looked at with antipathy,
from the standpoint of an enemy. Then it would be nothing but the
bodily manifestation of sheer ‘arrogance’.

When the opponent shows an arrogant attitude, swaggering about with
his chest puffed out elatedly ( abza ), inclining his head pti one side,
perking up his shoulder. 16

This a typical description of a ‘haughty’ man. The inclining of
his head on one sld® w was so typical of this kind of man that the

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22 <>

phrase istaqama al-akhda‘u , [ 8 lit. “the neck has straightened up”,
meant that the man lost his self-confidence and became humiliated.

With all this, it was not always easy, particularly for those who
were unable to see things hidden under the surface, to distinguish
between a real hallm , that is, a man who showed gentleness and
meekness because he was tremendously powerful, and a man who
was, so to speak, forced to be gentle, and similing simply because he
was weak. And a real hallm was often mistaken for a weak,
powerless man, to whom one could do anything one liked to do
without any danger of being hit back.

I think that it is my apparent meekness (hilm) that has induced my
tribesmen to do all kinds of wrong and injustice to me, but even a
halTm man may sometimes be forced to lose his composure and give
a free rein to his ebullient anger (yustajhalu , lit.: to be forced to
become a jdhil ). x 9

This inability to distinguish between real hilm and real weakness
made itself manifest not only in the field of mundane, purely human
relations, but in a certain sense at the religious level also, namely, in
the attitude of the pagan Makkans towards Islam. For, as the Qur’an
shows, the disbelieving Makkans full of self-confidence and pride
were induced to assume a more and more arrogant attitude towards
Islam when they saw that the severe Divine punishment did not
actually overtake them as promised so repeatedly by the Revelation.
Seen from the point of view of the Muslims, the Makkans mistook
Divine hilm for weakness and lack of power.

Before closing this part of our discussion, we must mention
briefly one more important fact. The above study of the concept of
jahl will contribute toward elucidating the concept of zulm, which is
another outstanding key-term in the Qur’an . 20

If the outer manifestation of hilm is, as we have just seen,
waqar , that of jahl is zulm . In most cases zulm is nothing but a
particular form assumed by jahl when it bursts out in a physically
observable form in behavior; in short, jahl is the inside and zulm is
the outside of the matter. This will, I think, make us understand
immediately that zulm is not a simple ‘wrong-doing’ as the word is

commonly translated. At the same time, this would seem to make n
clear that the basic meaning of the word zulm, as it is used in the
Qur’an in reference to the attitude of the stubborn disbelievers,
should be understood in correlation with jahl.

Behind all their acts of zulm against the Prophet and his follo-
wers, we must see the working of the spirit of jahl, as the very
source of all these actions. By offering a stubborn and violent
resistance to the Prophet and the Divine teaching, they are apparently
and seemingly directing their zulm towards God Himself. But, in the
Qur’anic conception, no one in the whole world can ever direct an
act of zulm towards God. So they are, in reality, doing zulm, not to
God, but to themselves. This must be the meaning of the Qur’anic
expression zulm al-nafs, “doing wrong to oneself’.

In order to understand this point still better we have to remem-
ber that the concept of jahl is a very wide one covering almost the
whole range of human life. In other words, whenever a man loses his
temper and his self-control, he is being a jahil. But at the higher level
of moral life, the concept acquires a very special coloring by being
associated with the concept of ‘personal honor’ ( ‘ird). Then it is a
particular type of moral indignation caused by the feeling that one’s
‘ird is being vitally involved, that one’s personal honor has been
compromised or violated. This behavior pattern was, as we saw
earlier, quite typical of the pre-Islamic Arabs.

In this particular context, jahl means an attitude of stem protest
against having one’s personal honor trampled under foot. It is a
determined refusal to be humiliated. This, I think, is exactly what is
meant by the above-mentioned phrase in the Qur’an, hamiyat al-
jdhiliyyah. It is clear from the Qur’an that many pagan Arabs felt as
an unbearable humiliation to bow before the absolute authority of
God. It did not make much difference to them whether the supreme
authority before whom they were commanded to bow was human or
divine. The idea itself of surrendering to any superior authority and
being commanded to do so was to them unbearably humiliating. They
were jahl in this particular sense.

And it is evidently this particular moral aspect of jahl that plays
a major role in the religious world-view of the Qur’an.

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23

2 — We now turn to the second semantic element of jahl, and in
connection with it, that of hilm, too. This second aspect is directly
dependent on the first aspect and derives from it; it is the most
natural consequence of jahl being such a thing as I have just tried to
explain. The second aspect concerns the effect of jahl on the intellec-
tual capacity of man. Quite naturally this effect can appear only in a
negative way, i.e., destructively. The nature of jahl is such that
whenever it becomes active it smothers and weakens the reasoning
power of the human brain. In order to keep your steadiness of
judgment, in whatever situation you may be put, you must be a
hallm.

Of course one may object to this and say like Ma‘bad b.
‘Alqamah, a poet contemporary of the Prophet:

Ljl j tj-bl

Our hands act in a jahil way, yes, but our head remains calm
and hallm?'

This is possible in theory; it is easy to say this, but in practice,
it is a feat rarely to be accomplished. How can one see things
objectively with an undisturbed tranquility of mind when one is blind
with passion? As a general rule, jahl causes the weakening, if not
complete loss, of the function of reason ( ‘aql)\ only when coupled
with hilm, is ‘aql capable of functioning normally.

It will be easy to see, then, that hilm has in itself a latent
possibility of being developed and elaborated philosophically into
something close to the Hellenistic virtue of ‘non-perturbation’ based
on the cultivation of autarcy. The Arabs did not go in this direction.

But hilm is capable also of being developed in another direction,
i.e., in the direction of administrative skill and political wisdom, a
remarkable show of tact and statesmanship, based on a perfect control
of one’s own feelings, in dealing with other people and particularly,
in governing and ruling other people. This is what the Arabs did.

In Jahiliyyah, hilm was unanimously recognized, and highly
esteemed, as one of the most essential, indispensable qualities of a
sayyid or a man standing at the head of the tribesmen, with siyadah
(tribal chieftaincy) and ri'asah (headman-ship) in his hand.

p-Lillj Su* (XdLi 3 [fL O* Ijl

If you ever want to rule people as their chief, then rule them not will:
rashness and abusing (i.e. rule them with hilm). For, indeed, hilm
produces a better result than jahl — you must keep it well in

mind except in your being treated unjustly with excessive hatred
and enmity. 32

Now the hilm of the tribe of Quraysh was very famous in
Arabia. This does not mean simply that the Makkans were all hallm
in the original Bedouin sense; it meant primarily that they were
clever and shrewd people, clever enough to develop this age-old
virtue of the Arabs into a political wisdom. They knew how to
manage and control their naturally hot-blooded, touchy neighbours
with a clever tact by, first, controlling themselves. Prof. Montgomery
Watt sees in this hilm of Quraysh, developed into a political wisdom
and ruling technique, the very basis on which the Makkans could
build up so successfully their mercantile enterprises. 2S And it would
not be going too far to ascribe that wise statesmanship displayed by
the Prophet himself after the migration to MadTnah to this inborn
quality of the Quraysh. Not entirely, perhaps; but still the
biographical traditions about Muhammad show most clearly that he
was indeed a first-rate statesman and also a man of hilm. There must
have been some strong inner relationship between the two
qualifications. Only, unlike the other Makkans who used this political
talent in business and trade, he used it in building up his religious
community (ummah).

Jahl, as we have seen, is not primarily a permanent nature of
man, it denotes occasional outbursts of passion, and as regards its
effect on human intellect and reason, it implies momentary, and not
necessarily permanent and constant, absence of the balance of mind.

But if a man happens to be constantly in that state, if he is an
habitual jahil, then we may reasonably suppose that he is incapable
of forming a judicious judgment on any matter. Such a man is
mentally blind. He cannot sec through things; his sight stops at the
surface of things and does not penetrate deep into them. His under-
standing and observation are bound to be superficial, and he lends to
acl 111 *11 situations according to his superficial understanding.

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God and Man in the Qur’an

Thus we arrive at the second meaning of jahl: the incapacity of
the mind for having deep understanding of things which consequently
produces always shallow and rash judgments on everything.

How can I ever forget Nushaybah (who has been killed)?! Though a
man who cannot see deep (jahil ), a mughammar (i.e. a man with an
insufficient experience, a ‘greenhorn’), might think (mistakenly) that
I am a forgetful man. 24

This is exactly paralleled by the usage of the same word in the
Qur’an, in the Surah al-Baqarah, where mention is made of the poor
people, who even in dire poverty know how to keep themselves
abstinent, i.e., who behave decently and composedly because of their
inborn haya, “sense of shame” (which was so highly praised by the
Prophet, according to Hadith, as one of the foundations of religion).

✓ * s * * ' ■' * *£> •

A man who judges things only by seeing the surface (jahil) may
get a wrong impression and consider them rich because of their
abstinence and restraint , but thou shalt know them by their
mark.

Al-Baqarah , 274 [273]

But of course the Qur’an, in the majority of cases, uses this
word in the sense of shallow observation and superficial judgment in
reference to matters that are more properly religious. In this religious
sense, jahl is the incapacity of a man to understand God’s Will
behind the veil of visible things and events, the incapacity to see the
natural things as so many Divine ay at. For this kind of man, the
natural things are just natural things, and not symbols of anything.
And since, according to the Qur’an, God sends down his ay at in the
clearest and most evident way — that is, as bayyinat, ‘evident
(signs )’— -jahl means the intellectual incapacity to understand even the
self-evident religious truth, and even the easiest part of Divine
revelation. Examples abound in the Qur’an. Here I give only one
of them:

Irnm ...—mmmmrn

Jahiliyyah and Islam

23 5

,4-io \2‘j,

:'-4

Even if We should sent down the angels to them, and the dead
should speak to them, and We should gather all things in array
before their own eyes, yet they would not be believers, unless
God so willed. But most of them are just jahils.

Al-An ‘am, 6:3

Jahl is not restricted to the superficial observation of things
around man; it includes also the incapacity of a man to see ‘himself,
to take the correct and exact measure of himself. He who does not
know himself, who cannot see the natural limitation of his capacity,
and who therefore tends to go beyond his human bounds is also a
jahil. And from this point of view, words like tughyan and baghy
meaning “exceeding the bounds” are often used by the Qur’an in
describing the attitude of the Kafirs towards God, as a concrete
manifestation of jahl.

In short, jahl in this sense is almost equivalent to mental
blindness. The Qur’an brings out this aspect of jahl in a very
pertinent way.

It is not the eyes that are blind, but it is the hearts, which are
within the bosoms, that are blind.

Al-Hajj, 22:45 [46]

They are mentally blind, and mentally deaf; how, then, can we
hope them to understand the religious truth? — this is the final verdict
passed upon those who are characterized by jahl in this sense.

This aspect of the semantic structure of jahl makes us under-
stand easily how its opposite, hilm, came to acquire the meaning of
‘aql (reason). Reason can only operate properly when you are calm,
as long as you keep the balance of ‘aql\ the latter is a narrower
concept than hilm. Hilm is the very basis of ‘reason’ and ‘intellect’.
To be very exact, however, it is not a perfect synonym of "aql, the
latter is a narrower concept than hilm. Hilm is the very basis of ' aql ;

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God and Man in the Qur’an

it is the unagitated state of the mind which makes the proper activity
of 'aql possible, which enables the ‘aql to operate calmly and
steadily so that it may produce good and right judgments. But,
practically, of course, the two come to the same thing.

In a satire ( hija *) against Banu HarTth b. Ka‘b, HassSn ibn
Thabit uses the word in this particular sense in an extremely inte-
resting way. 25

-* "■ " ' > * > ^

O BanU HarTth! do not your intellects ( ahlam , pi. of hilm) prevent you
(lit: scare you back) from attacking me {i.e., by hija’)? But (on
reflection I must admit that this is demanding too much of you) for
you are all hollow with nothing inside, giants with tiny brains
(jumkhur, “a man whose body is big but whose intellect is small and
weak”). There is nothing wrong in people’s being tall and big, but the
combination of a body as a mule and an intellect {ahlam) as small as
that of little birds (is too much!).

It is perhaps worthy to be noted that the Qur’an uses the same
word in this sense in a very similar way.

This is said in reference to the inimical attitude of the Makkans
towards the Prophet.

Do their intellects bid them do this? (i.e., are they acting like
this in accordance with what their poor intellect commands?) Or
are they (by nature) an insolent and arrogant people?

Al-Tur , 52:32

3 — It is not a far cry from this to the third meaning of the word
jahl , i.e., ‘ignorance’. Here the opposite of jahl is no longer hilm , but
Him (knowledge). This is, as is well known, the most usual meaning
of jahl in classical Arabic. This, however, is the least important of
the three fundamental meanings of the word in the earlier period.
Still, pre-lslamic poetry offers some examples though not very many.
‘Anlarah’s Mu'allaqah, for instance, (v. 43):

Jahiliyyah and Islam

235

l2j

^ o;i l JL

The poet, addressing his beloved ‘Ablah (Malik’s daughter),
says: “Why don’t you ask our horsemen, if you are ignorant, about
what you do not know?” meaning thereby “everybody knows how
brave and valiant 1 am on the battle field; ask anybody you like if by
any chance you do not know this.”

This meaning of “lack of knowledge”, “lack of information”
does not play an important role in the Qur’an. The word is used
mostly either in the first or the second sense. Perhaps we may cite as
an example of this:

era ^ y.yi p-i ^ JLU dJi

God shall forgive only those who do evil in ignorance (jahalah)
but then quickly repent.

An-Nisa 4:21 [17] 26

II. From Hilm to Islam

As the word jahiliyyah itself shows, the word jahl — the first and the
second meaning — is one of the most important key-terms in the
Qur’an. Without a right understanding of this concept we would not
be able to put the new religious conception of Islam in the right place
in the history of the religious thought of the Arabs. But, as we have
seen, the two fundamental meanings of jahl was sharply opposed to
the concept of hilm in pre-lslamic times. Where is it now, this
concept of hilm, in the Qur’anic system?

Apparently the word hilm no longer appears on the stage in an
important role except when it is used in reference to God Himself.
“Allah is Halim” — this seems to be the only form under which the
concept occurs in the Qur’an in a truly significant way. The hilm that
used to be one of the most conspicuous features of the |>re-Islamic
mentality, that used to appear almost everywhere in pre-lslamic
poetry whenever the poets sang in praise of themselves or others,
seems to have ceased to play any decisive role, as a human attribute.
What docs this mean? Does this mean that the concept, which had

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237

once been so important in the ethical life of the Arabs disappeared
completely with the rise of the new religion? My answer to this
question is in the negative. The explanation I have given of the pair,
jahl-hilm , will have made it clear that the idea of hilm itself continues
to live in the Qur’anic conception of human nature. It is still palpably
there, not as a definite concept, but diffused throughout the Qur’an.
In a certain sense, the Qur’an as a whole is dominated by the very
spirit of hilm. The constant exhortation to kindness (ihsdn) in human
relations, the emphasis laid on justice ( r adl ), the forbidding of wrong-
ful violence (; zulm ), the bidding of abstinence and control of passions,
the criticism of groundless pride and arrogance — all are concrete
manifestations of this spirit of hilm.

But there is something far more important than this. This
particular pattern of human behavior called jahl is now in the Qur’an
directed toward God Himself. Hitherto in the pre-Islamic conception
jahl had nothing at all to do with God or gods. It was concerned
exclusively with human beings in their relations with each other; that
is to say, jahl was a peculiar attitude of a man toward another man
or other men. In short jahl , whether good or bad, was exclusively a
matter of man-to-man relation.

But now with the rise of Islam in Makkah we witness a different
and quite a new situation arising among the Arabs. As noted above
the concept of jahl is the center of an important network of concepts
intimately associated with each other, such as pride in human power,
limitless self-confidence, self-sufficiency, refusal to bow before any
superior authority, keen sense of honor, haughty attitude of mockery
toward one’s inferiors, etc. The whole network of these concepts is
now in the Qur’an directed toward the Prophet Muhammad and the
Book revealed through him, the Divine dyat, and consequently and
ultimately toward God Himself.

In other words, the Qur’an interprets the attitude of hostility
shown by the pagan Arabs toward Divine guidance (huda) in terms
of this conceptual network of jahl . According to the Qur’an the
pagan attitude of hostility is nothing but a concrete manifestation
of this ya/*/-mentality which has been so characteristic of the pre-
Islamic Arabs.

God (II)

man man

But we must notice that, if interpreted in this way, jahl is no
longer what it has been; a radical shift of emphasis has occurred in
its structure. For in this interpretation, jahl is no longer a ‘horizontal’,
i.e. human relation (Direction /); it is a relation between man and
God. Here we see pagan Arabs taking the attitude of jahl toward God
(Direction II), which is, from the point of view of the Qur’an, an
incredible presumptuousness on the part of man, for man is
essentially an ‘ahd (“absolutely humble servant”), and should be
nothing else. So jahl in this sense must be banished from the
presence of the great Lord. What will remain behind? Quite naturally
the opposite concept of hilm. And this is the only logical conse-
quence, for, in general, when the concept A and the concept B stand
opposed to each other, the negation of A logically means the
affirmation of B. And as a matter of fact, in pre-Islamic times, there
was between jahl and hilm precisely such a relation.

But in the new Islamic conception, this relation does not hold
between the two concepts when they are directed toward God. As
long as jahl has been a purely human behavior-pattern, its negation
has always meant hilm. In such a situation, when you are told that
you should not act toward your brethren in a jahil way, it necessarily
implies that you should act in a halfm way. But here in the presence
of the great Lord, where man is His ‘ abd , and should act as behooves
an 'abd, this either-ya/*/-or-/j ilm formula is no longer valid. As an
attitude of man toward God, his Lord, jahl is of course out of
question, but for that matter hilm is equally out of question, because,
as we have already seen, hilm is essentially based on the concept of
‘power’ (qudrah). As conscious control of one’s own feelings and
emotions, as forbearance, and patience, outwardly it looks like mere
meekness and calmness, but behind it there always is the clearest
consciousness of one’s own superior power which may at any
moment linnsfoim itsell into a terrible outburst of anger.

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2Y)

This is certainly not the proper attitude for man to take toward
God who is his Lord. This cannot be the attitude of an 'abd.

G«J

Kafir believer

As noted above, the Qur’an interprets the Kafirs’ attitude of
hostility and non-submission as an extreme case of human arrogance
stemming from the hamiyyah al-jahiliyyah. In short, Kafirs dare to
take this incredible attitude of jahl toward God. This does not imply,
however that a real believer should take the alternative attitude of
hilm toward God (as shown in the Diagram). For in the Qur’anic
view, hilm would be no less an outrageous act of going beyond the
bounds of man than taking the attitude of jahl.

A real believer, i.e. a real ‘abd (servant) in the fullest sense of
the word, should go far beyond the degree of hilm in the direction of
humbleness and humility before God. All consciousness of self-
sufficiency and power should be abandoned; absolute submission is
what is required of him. But when ‘humbleness’ reaches this degree,
it is no longer hilm ; it is islam.

Thus we see how the concept of islam is historically affiliated
with, and yet at the same time clearly distinguished from, the old
concept of hilm. From the Qur’anic point of view, islam in the sense
of absolute submission and self-surrender was not a simple downright
negation and rejection of hilm; it was rather a continuation and
development of hilm. The new conception pushed ahead and brought
this time-honored virtue of the Arabs to its extreme limit, which was
so extreme, indeed, that the concept had to go beyond its original
boundary and transform itself into something quite different from it:
islam. The concept of islam was, in this respect, a radical modi-
fication of the concept of hilm, which was necessitated by the very
fact that now the object with which man was confronted was no
longer an ordinary person, but the majestic figure of his own Lord.

This is what 1 meant earlier by saying that in a certain sense
hilm was the pre-religious, prc-lslamic form of Islam But of course

the concept of hilm itself had to disappear from the stage as a basic
religious attitude of man toward God, for in a ‘servant’ serving his
master sincerely, there should not be even the slightest sense of self-
sufficiency and superiority. But the concept of hilm cannot
subsist if it is deprived of this latter element. In the Qur’anic
conception, only God is fully entitled to be halim — toward His
servants, not vice versa.

The fact that the concept of hilm as a human attribute ceases to
be active in the Qur’an suggests that here a new conceptual organ-
ization is under way, a new ‘articulation’, to use one of the technical
terms which I explained earlier, of the human reality. According to
this new conceptual articulation, the vast field which was once
covered by the concept of hilm has to be entirely reorganized: new
lines are being drawn, and new sections are coming into being.

Once the opposition was: jahil . . . halim.

Now in the Qur’an, the concept of hilm as the opposite of jahl
is giving place to a number of new concepts, the most important of
which is islam with all that is implied by the word.

At the same time, the concept of jahil itself, which still plays a
considerable role in the Qur’anic world-view as a typical attitude of
the obstinate and stubborn unbelievers, is being superseded by a still
more important concept — that of kafir, again with all that the word
implies. And this brings into being, a new opposition: kafir . . .
muslim.

This teaches us that behind these two terms we have to read all
the religious, and ethical implications of the old contrast between
jahil and halim, but in an entirely new light coming from the drastic
reorganization of the concepts.

III. The Conception of Religion (Din) as ‘Obedience’

It is not without some hesitation that I take, up this problem for
discussion in this place, because the whole matter is wrapped in
philological uncertainties that are almost hopelessly difficult to clear
up. The major argument of this section must necessarily be highly
problematical because the key word din (religion) which forms the
very center of the whole discussion is itself problematical as regards
its original meaning.

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God and Man in the Qur’an

If, in spite of all this, I have decided not to renounce wholly the
attempt to analyze the meaning structure of this word, it is mainly for
a reason that is of particular relevance to the topic of this chapter, the
Lord-servant relation between God and man: namely, because the
meaning of the word din contains, among others a remarkable
semantic element of ‘obedience’ (ta‘ah) and ‘servant-ness’
(‘ ubudiyyah ). To be sure, it is not certain whether the meaning of
‘religion’ may be traced back to that of ‘obedience’ and ‘servant-
ness’. But this is not an impossibility. Besides, the Qur’an, as we
shall see presently, consciously connects these two concepts with one
another.

Din is certainly one of the most controversial words in the whole
Qur’anic vocabulary. The trouble with us, however, is that we cannot
in any way lightly pass over the difficulty by simply disregarding the
word, because it is an extremely important key-term in the Qur’an.
In any case, we must begin by admitting that it is one of the most
difficult Qur’anic key-terms to handle semantically. The etymology
itself is uncertain, to begin with. Outwardly we have before our eyes
one simple monosyllabic word; but it is quite possible that we have,
in reality, more than one word under exactly the same form. That is
to say, two or more independent words going back to different
sources may have come to assume in course of time one and the
same form. Besides, there is also possibility of some at least of its
various meanings being of foreign origin.

The word dm has two important meanings distinguishable in the
Qur’an: (1) religion and (2) judgment. According to some scholars, 27
of these two fundamental meanings, the first Le., ‘religion’ is of
Persian origin, den in Middle Persian meaning roughly ‘(systematic)
religion’, 28 and the second, that of ‘judgment’ goes back to Hebrew;
the Hebrew word dm means ‘judgment’; moreover the particular
combination ‘Day of Judgment’ (yawm al-dln ) is so typically Jewish.

Thus we are here faced with a very complex and complicated
problem. As regards this foreign origin theory I fully admit that it is
not impossible, but at the same time I cannot help feeling somehow
that this is simplifying the matter too much. Before resorting to this
kind of explanation, we should, I think, first try to see whether it is
not possible to explain the word within the confines of Arabic itself.
By this I do not of course imply that there should be one original
meaning attached to the root DYN to which all the various meanings

Jahiliyyah and Islam 24 1

might be reduced. This is quite impossible linguistically. In a ease
like this a modem linguist assumes from the very beginning the exis-
tence of more than one independent root under one common form
The phenomenon is one of ‘pure polysemy’.

With this in view, let us begin by noting that an examination of
pre-Islamic literature brings to light the three following root
meanings: (1) ‘custom’, ‘habit’, (2) ‘requital’, and (3) ‘obedience’.

The first of these three would be simply dismissed as of no
relevance to our present topic, if it were not for the fact that there is
a possibility of our deriving the meaning of ‘ritual practices’ attached
as an important semantic element to the word din from this root
meaning of ‘custom’. But this is capable also of being explained as
a case of ‘reification’ of the more fundamental concept of ‘religion’
in the sense of ‘personal faith’. However this may be, I must content
myself here with giving one example from Jahill literature.

This is part of an elegy which a poet of the Hudhayl tribe
composed bewailing the death of a dear friend.

All those around me have fallen asleep, and once again there comes
back to me my sorrow that renews itself. There comes back to me
again my habitual state (din), and I feel as if between the ribs of my
breast (/.e., within my breast) there were a string of lute fully stretched
(i.e., my breast resounds with sobbing like the sound of a stretched
string of a musical instrument). 29

Turning now to the second root meaning, ‘requital’, we may do
well to remark at the outset that the word din with this meaning is
also found very frequently in pre-Islamic poetry. Here is a typical
example of it 30 out of a great number.

ivf p fcto U

l t . * t * t ''

j — £j\ L* — u

(We I HU I borne their wrong very patiently), but when their wrong
btvame m> evident, and began to show itself' so nakedly that there

242

God and Man in the Qur’an

Jahiliyyah and Islam

243

remained nothing but our taking an offensive attitude on our part, we
(rose up) and requited ( dinna , a verbal form corresponding to din)
them as they had requited us (Le., as they had done wrong to us — the
last expression is what is known in rhetoric as mushakalah , the phrase
being equivalent to danna-hum ka-md fa ( alu).

particular perspective crystallized in this word represents a global
view of the matter which enables us to consider the same thing from
both ends.

din

The Qur’an, too, uses the same word in a verbal form — passive
participle — with exactly the same basic meaning in the Surah al-
SaffSt:

What! (the unbelievers ask sarcastically) when we are dead and
have become dust and bones, shall we then be requited
(madinun).

Al-Saffdt, 37:16

It is quite significant for our present purposes that this is said
precisely in reference to the concept of the Day of Judgment. That is
to say, the Day of Judgment (yawm al-din) is exactly the day on
which all men without exception will be requited {madinun) each
according to what he has done in the present world. And this is the
meaning of din in this particular combination.

As is evident, the meaning of ‘requital’, i.e. ‘judgment’, in this
context is of supreme importance in the world-view of the Qur’an.
But its proper place is in the semantic field of eschatology. It is not
of direct relevance to our present topic. What is directly relevant to
it is the third root meaning of din.

The third root meaning of the word din is, as we have indicated
above, ‘obedience’. To be very strict, this understanding is not exact
because ‘obedience’ represents only one aspect of the matter.
Properly speaking, din (or the verb dana) belongs to that large
category of words known as addad, i.e. words having two contrary
meanings.

In other terms, the word din has two opposite faces, one positive
and the other negative. On its positive side, it means “to subdue,
oppress, govern by power”, and on its negative side it means “to
submit, yield, to be obedient and submissive”. There is nothing
surprising about this. As many other words of this category, the

subdues

A ft. B

submits

This is why in many cases the same word din is capable of
being interpreted as both qahr (exercise of superior power in
subduing others) and ta 'ah (obedience), without our being able to tell
which of these two possible ways of interpretation is right. The truth
of the matter is that both are meant at the same time without
distinction, the concept of din being comprehensive of these two
contrary directions.

The classical example of it is provided by a verse by ‘Amr b
Kulthflm: 31

Ljj b ya>- ul <uJiip aid* Ujjj

We have inherited the glory of (one of our forefathers) ‘Alqamah; it
is he who has made lawful to us {i.e. who has conquered for us) many
strongholds of glory by force {dinan=qahran ) —

or

reducing them to the state of absolute obedience and submissiveness

{dinan=td‘atan).

The word seems to show the same conceptual ‘ambivalence’,
when Zuhayr b. Abl Sulma, describing the actual situation of his tribe
which is in complete disorder and confusion, says:

^j!dl ^ y The din is in utter confusion.

This must mean that the tribe is in the state of anarchy so that
nobody is certain as to who is to rule and who is to obey/

The same is probably true of the expression Jidinifulan * 2 which
is very common in prc-Islamic poetry, “in somebody’s din". The
expression belongs, in my opinion, to this category, although the old

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God and Man in the Qur’an

scholiasts almost unanimously take this word in the sense of
‘obedience’. Here is a typical example:

^ ol-l ^ cJL-

The poet here threatens a man of Banu Asad who has done him
wrong, and says:

[The poisoned arrow of my satire ( hija ’) will reach you and overtake
you] even if you (flee from me and) settle down in the Wadi Jaww
among Banu Asad in ‘ Ajnr’s dTn y and even if Fadak separates between
us. 33

‘Amr referred to in this verse is the famous king of Hlrah, ‘Amr
b. Hind b. al-Mundhir Ma’ al-Sama’ and the phrase Ji dini ‘ Amr
means in this context your becoming a subject of ‘Amr and thereby
putting yourself under the “protection of his power”. Thus the
concept of din here comprises both ‘obedience’ (td'ah) and
‘authority’ (sultan). In other word, the same thing is being looked at
from two opposite sides:

din

Looked at from the side of King ‘Amr, it is his sultan,
‘authority’ or ‘protective power’, but from the side of the man who
shelters himself behind the royal influence, it is ta ‘ah (obedience) to
the king.

This interpretation must, I think, be applied to the Qur’anic
verse 12:76, where we are told how Joseph in Egypt succeeds, by a
clever trick, to detain his younger brother Benjamin in custody.

gJLJl eL>-l JL-G 015** L* ■ ° •’ f)

of mi

( Thus We contrived for Joseph 's sake); he could not have kept
his brother in the din of the Egyptian king, except that God

willed.

Yusuf 12:76

Jahiliyyah and Islam

24^

This phrase is usually taken to mean “according to the king’s
law” {ft dini a!-malik=fi shar'i al-malik, or ft qanuni-hi). This is, I
think, one of the instances of reading into the Qur’an a later
conception that could only arise after the concept of shar‘ as
‘religious law’ had been well established.

In the same way, the word din may be taken in the sense of both
“humble obedience” and “absolute rule” in 16:54 [52], an excee-
dingly beautiful passage which describes how all things in the
heavens and the earth are “making prostration before God” expressing
thereby profound humility and absolute obedience.

I dj ^r^jMlj L dj^t>

To God belongs whatever is in the heavens and the earth. His

is the din for ever!

Al-Nahl, 16:54 [52]

The word din in this verse has — if the above interpretation is
right — a double meaning. On the one hand, it means the absolute
Sultan of God, and, on the other, i.e. if looked at from the side of
His creature, it means “absolute obedience”.

Very often, however, the word is used in pre-Islamic poetry in
the more specified sense of ‘obedience’, ‘being ruled’ and ‘being a
servant’.

(*-f* ^>LJl jjz l_jji

They refused to be ruled by the kings, for they were so filled with self-

confidence; •

{laqah is the infinitive of the verb laqiha meaning to ‘conceive’,
‘become pregnant’, here in the metaphorical sense of ‘being pregnant
with self-confidence’). 34

We may do well to compare this with verse 25 of the
Mu'allaqah of ‘Amr b. Kulthum where exactly the same thought is
expressed by means of the verb dana itself:

O' dJLJl dlLi

We used to disobey the king in those days for fear of becoming his

slaves

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God and Man in the Qur’an

Similarly in the following verse by an anonymous poet:

Whenever he attended the tribal gathering or girded on a sword, even
the haughtiest men became humble to him just like mangy camels obey
docilely the man who smears them with pitch. 35

The reference is to the fact that the mangy camels show themselves
passively obedient to the man who smears their bodies with ointment,
because it makes them feel pleasant.

This concept of absolute obedience and humble submission with
a tacit understanding that there is behind the stage someone
exercising an overwhelming power and domination may very well
have been the origrin of the important meaning of ‘religion’ attached
to the word din. And if this is so it would be quite unnecessary to go
beyond the limits of Arabic and seek its origin in the Persian word
din (MP den , Avest. daena). The formal coincidence might have been
purely accidental. 36 I think this is quite possible and probable,
because this conception of religion based on the image of a
submissive servant ruled absolutely by a powerful king is quite in
line with the typically Semitic mode of thinking.

I do not think it a pure accident that in the Qur’an, in two
crucial passages, the word din is virtually defined in terms of ' abada ,
i.e. ‘to worship God’ in the sense of “serving Him as a humble
servant who obeys his master”.

^ iif ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ aj ^

O men , if you are in doubt of my religion (dim), then (I declare
that) I serve (a‘budu) not those whom you serve (ta'buduna)
apart from God, but I serve (a f budu) God? 1

Yunus , 10:104

toil L* JjXjIp JLif Yj ijjoi C Ul 'Vj

&

Jdhiliyyah and Islam

247

O unbelievers , I serve (a ( budu) not what you serve (ta ‘ budiina ),
nor do you serve what I serve. And I shall never serve what you
serve, nor will you serve what I serve. To you your religion
(dlnu-kum) and to me my religion (dim).

Al-Kdfirun , 109:1-6

Equally remarkable is the combination in the following verse 3K
of the verb ‘ abada with the expression “making the religion (din)
sincere” with which we are already familiar:

d l .,a 1.>^ dll Ol

I have been commanded to serve (a'buda) God making my
religion (din) pure and sincere.

Al Zumar, 39:14 [11]

The combination of din with ' abada in the passages just quoted
cannot possibly be merely contextual. It is understandable only on the
supposition that there is a profound inner connection between the two
concepts. These passages can be taken almost as a definition of the
word din suggesting how it should be understood rightly.

It is worthy to be pointed out, too, that, at a more formalized
level, the same word din is also associated in the Qur’an with the
word islam. We must remember in this connection that, as we have
seen above, the concept of islam was, originally at least, based on the
conception of man’s being a ‘submissive’ servant of God.

Verily, the (true) religion (din) with God is Islam.

Ali * Imran , 3:17 [19]

I

This day I have perfected your religion (din), and completed
My favor unto you t and I have approved Islam for your
religion (din).

Al-Md'idah, 5:5 1 3 1

24K

God and Man in the Qur’an

Jahiiiyyah and Islam

f

According to Dr. Wilfred Cantwell Smith 39 the word ‘religion’
in general may be taken in two different, although closely related,
senses; one is ‘religion’ as a deep personal matter; the existential act
of each individual person of believing in something, that is, in short,
‘faith’; and the other is ‘religion’ in a ‘reified’ sense, i.e. as
something common to a community, an objective communal matter,
comprising all the creeds and ritual practices shared by all members
of that community. Both of these menaings are found in the Qur’an
and this double usage of the same word seems to go back to
Jahiiiyyah , although in Jahiiiyyah , except perhaps in Jewish and
Christian circles, ‘religion’ as a personal existential act does not seem
to have been clearly formulated and clearly distinguished from
‘religion’ in the sense of a whole body of ritual practices. Perhaps we
should rather think that such a distinction itself was something quite
alien to the religious consciousness of the pre-Islamic Arabs. Perhaps
in looking for such a distinction in jahilT thought we are
unconsciously trying to read into it a conception which is a product
of later ages.

When for example, the poet al-Nabighah says, in reference to the
Christians of Ghassan, 40 dinu-hum qawTmun we cannot decide defi-
nitely whether he means that their faith is steadfast or their religion,
Christianity, is an upright religion. Likewise when the Hanlf poet
Umayyah calls his standpoint dm al-hanifiyyah , “the Hanifitic
religion”, it is not clear whether what is meant is ‘reified’ religion on
a non-reified personal faith — perhaps both at the same time, we
should say, if we are to strict to this basic distinction.

As to the meaning of din as a system of ritual practices it is
quite certain that the concept was firmly established in the mind of
pre-Islamic Arabs. I will give here a most interesting example. 41

-A* Jl LJ ^

The poet is taking leave of a beautiful girl who is trying to
tempt him, and declares that he has now more serious things to be
concerned with than love-making. Wadd , by the way, is a pagan idol
mentioned also in the Qur’an (71:22 [23]).

May Wadd give you a long life! (i.e. fare you well!) for dalliance with
women is no longer lawful to me, since I have firmly made up my

mind to concentrate upon din.

The context shows clearly that ‘religion’ (dm) in this verse refers
to the pagan, pre-Islamic custom of pilgrimage to Makkah. The poet
says that now that he made up his mind firmly and seriously to make
his pilgrimage to Makkah, sporting with women is haram. The point
of immediate relevance to our present topic is that here we have a
case in which the word din is used clearly in the sense of hajj , i.e.
‘pilgrimage’ as a ritual.

This particular usage of the word dm by al-Nabighah would
seem to suggest that when the pre-Islamic Arabs used the
expression din al-nasara (“the religion of the Christians ), for
example, they presumably meant thereby ‘religion’ as something
reified, an objectively established thing, i.e. a whole system
consisting of a certain number of creeds and ritual practices that arc
shared by a community. 42

The Qur’an uses the word obviously in the reified and non-
reified senses. The best and the simplest example of non-reified type
is supplied by the expression “making the din sincere”, where the
word din cannot but mean personal faith in God, whether it be just
momentary or permanent. As an example of the reified use, we may
cite 3:66 [73], where the Jews are depicted saying among themselves:

Do not trust except those who follow your religion .

Ali ‘Imran, 3:66 [73]

In the verse already quoted above (verse 5 [3]) which runs,
“This day I have perfected your religion . . . and I have approved
islam for your religion”, din seems to mean almost an objective,
reified ‘religion’.

If we go still further in this direction i.e. the direction of
reification, than the concept changes into millah, which is religion as
an objective ‘thing’ in the full sense of the word, a formal system of
creed and rituals which constitutes the principle of unity for a
particular religious community and works as the basis of its social
life. Unlike the word din which still retains the original connotation
of personal existential, we might say-- faith and belief however far

250

God and Man in the Qur’an

we may go in the direction of reification, millah connotes something
rigid, objective, formal and it reminds us always of the existence of
a society based one common religion.

The relation between these two key-terms may be shown by this
simple diagram:

-£L millah

as an existential act or din completely reified

process of reification

Din originates from a purely personal ‘obedience’, as we have
seen. It goes on being reified; in the last stages of this development
approaching more and more the concept of millah, din becomes
almost synonymous with the latter. This point will become clear if
we compare 3:66 [73] which we have quoted above with 2:114
[120] where exactly the same situation is referred to by means of
millah instead of din.

Cj 3 V. iiii fjy

Neither the Jews nor Christians will ever be satisfied with thee,
unless thou follow their religion (millah).

Al-Baqarah, 2:114 [120]

The synonymity of dm and millah appears more clearly in 6: 162
[161] where we read:

As for me, my Lord has guided me to a straight path, a right
religion (din) the religion (millah) of Abraham who was a man
of pure monotheism.

Al-An'am, 6:162 [161]

It is significant that we see here three important concepts
equated with each other, straight path=right din=millah of Abraham.

But if we retrace our steps towards the starting point (din), then
we will see dm and millah becoming more and more clearly dis-

Jahiliyyah and Islam

251

tinguished from each other, and therefore, non-interchangeable. For
example, in 39:2 we read:

CailsJ illl jkll L.u£il illij ytjf Ulk

Verily , we have sent down to thee the Book with truth . So
worship (u‘bud, " serve as a servant ”) God , making the din
sincere for Him .

Al-Zumar , 39:2

Here God addresses these words directly to the Prophet
Muhammad and exhorts him to serve God as behooves His servant.
It is evidently impossible to replace the word din in this context by
millah. For here the matter concerns the religious attitude of each
individual person, and not the objectively formalized system of
religion. Millah is essentially a matter of ummah , while dm in its
original, non-reified, phase, is a matter of each individual believer.

Notes

1. 5:93 [92].

2. 2:110 [118].

3. 57:15 [16].

4. 6:42 [43].

5. Like most of the Qur’anic key-terms, islam, or at least its verbal form

aslama , has its pre-Islamic history. In Jahiliyyah the word meant
“giving over” in general. To be more precise, aslama means that a man
gives over something which is particularly dear to him, precious to
him, something which is difficult or painful for him to abandon, to
somebody who demands it. This precious something may be his own
self, which is of course, in most cases, the most precious possession a
man has in his hand; (in which case it means naturally total
submission, self-surrendering); it may also be somebody else, one of
his dear friends or his tribesmen (in which case it would mean
betrayal). In any case the basic meaning is that of giving/over one’s
precious possession to somebody else. /

6. ‘AbTd b. al-Abras, Dfwan , XL, v. 20.

7. Cf also what Prof M. Watt says on these two words in his
Muhammad at Mecca , pp. 66-67.

H. " Wiin iM unter ‘al-Gahilijju’ zu vcrstehcn?” ( Muhammadanischv

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God and Man in the Qur’an

Studien I, pp. 219-228).

9. See among others, for example, the excellent summary by Prof. A. J.
Arberry in his The Seven Odes , pp. 251-253.

10. For example, al-Hamasah , DCCLXVIII, v. 3.

11. al-Hamasah , DCCLXII, v. 1.

12. al-Mufaddaliyyat , XXI, v. 1.

13. XIV, v. 8. The poet is al-Muzarrid.

14. al-Hamasah , CDXIII, v. 5.

15. For instance, 3:149 [155]:

ail

Verily God is All-forgiving, Halim.

Examples abound in the Qur’an.

16. By an anonymous poet of Banu Faq‘as, al-Hamasah , L, v. 2.

17. 1 as Layla al-Akhyaliyyah says, al-Hamdsah, DCXCIX,\. 1.

18. akhda ‘ properly means “the occipital artery”.

19. Qays b. Zuhayr, a pre-Islamic poet, al-Hamasah , CXLVII, v. 4.

20. The concept itself has been subjected to a detailed semantical analysis
in my Structure , pp. 152-159.

2 1 . al-Hamasah , TibrTzI recession, CCIII, v. 6.

22. al-Marrar b Sa‘Td, al-Hamasah , CDI, vv. 1-2.

23. See M. Watt, Muhammad at Mecca , pp. 10-11.

24. Abu Dhu’ayb, DTwdn al-Hudhaliyym , I, p. 67, v. 2.

25. al-Majam al-Hadfthah ed. al-Bustanl, Vol. II, p. 29.

26. Also 6:54.

27. Cf. Arthur Jeffery, The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an,

Baroda, 1938.

28. Cf. Wilfred C. Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion , New York,
1963, pp. 287-289.

29. Sa‘Tdah b. Ju’ayyah, DTwdn al-Hudhaliyym, I, p. 236, vv. 122.

30. Sahl b. Shaban, al-Hamasah, II, v. 4.

31. Muallaqah , v. 61.

32. 0* ^ ^

33. DTwdn Zuhayr , p. 138, v. 1.

34. ‘Abld b. al-Abras, DTwdn , VI, v. 2.

35. al-Hamasah , DCCIX, v. 1.

36. Contrast this with an adverse view advocated by Dr. Wilfred C. Smith
in his book, The Meaning and End of Religion (pp. 98-102), according
to which the Arabic word din was a local variety of an ‘international
term’ of Persian origin, dm or den , which had spread widely over the
countries of the Middle East.

37. a'hudu, ta'budtina : from the root ‘BD , from which comes the word

Jdhiliyyah and Islam

253

'abd (servant, slave).

38. It goes without saying that in this and similar contexts “making the
religion sincere” does not imply at all ‘momentary sincerity’ as it docs
in the case of Kafirs.

39. op. cit. pp. 51-53.

40. Quoted above, see Chapter 4, section IV.

41. al-Nabighah, DTwdn, p. 142, v. 3. This famous and extremely important
verse has long been misunderstood in various ways in the West. For
the details, see C. A. Nallino, “II verso di an-Nabighah sul dio Wadd”,
in Raccolta di Scritti, Vol. Ill, VI. In the DTwdn, the second word
wadd is replaced by rabbT (“My Lord”). That this is not the original
form is known from Yaqut’s Geographical Dictionary Mu jam al-
Bulddn (ed. Wiistenfeld IV, 913).

42. Theodore Noldeke in his Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alten
Araber (Hannover, 1864), p. 52, cites from al-Aghdm an interesting
verse in which a Jew contemporary of the Prophet uses the expression
dm Muhammad in reference to Islam.

Ethical Relation Between God and Man

CHAPTER 9

Ethical Relation Between
God and Man

I. God of Mercy

We have, in what precedes, dealt with three different aspects of the
basic personal relation between God and man. In this chapter, we
turn to the fourth — and last, according to our classification — relation
between them i.e. the ethical relation. It is one of the most
conspicuous features of the religious thought that has originated in
the Semitic world, whether of Judaism, Christianity or Islam, that the
concept of God is essentially ethical. And since, in this view God
Himself is essentially ethical, the relation between God and man must
also be of an ethical nature. In other words, God acts towards man
in an ethical way, that is, as God of Justice and Goodness, and man,
correspondingly, is expected to respond to this Divine initiative also
in an ethical way. Whether man really does respond in the right
ethical way, is a crucial and decisive moment in the structure of a
religion like Islam. It is not a mere matter of human goodness or
badness as it used to be in pre-Islamic times; ethics is now an
integral part of religion; the whole religion is involved in it, and is
indeed dependent on the ethical response of man.

From this point of view, the God of the Qur’an shows two diff-
erent as aspects that are fundamentally opposed to each other. For a
pious, believing mind, these two aspects are but two different sides
of one and the same God, but for the logic of ordinary reason, they

254

255

would seem contradictory, and, in fact, many thinkers have been at
pains to reconcile these two aspects with one .another. The problem
is common to both the Qur’an and the Old Testament.

In one of these two aspects Allah reveals Himself as God oi
infinite goodness and benevolence, God of unfathomable love and
mercy, a gracious, a merciful and forgiving God. This aspect of God
is referred to in the Qur’an by such key- words as ni ’mah (favor), fad I
(bounty), rahmah (mercy), maghfirah (forgiveness) and the like.

The problem has been so much discussed and so fully dealt with
by all those who have studied the Qur’an and Islam from the reli-
gious point of view that I have almost nothing more to add. 1

Only one point must be mentioned here, which is more directly
relevant to the purpose of the present study. The fact that God acts
towards man in such a gracious way and shows all sorts of goodness
and kind consideration in the form of ayat (signs) — this initial fact
already determines the only right response possible on the part of
human beings. And that response is ‘thankfulness’ or ‘gratitude’
(. shukr ), thankfulness for all the favors He is bestowing upon them.
But as I have said before, this response is conceivable only on the
basis of a right understanding and estimation of the Divine ayat.
Thankfulness in this sense is possible only when man has grasped the
meaning of the ayat.

ayat ► 'aql ► shukr

"signs" "understanding" "thankfulness"

This is the typical scheme of the conceptual associations relating
to this phenomenon. And thus, for the first time in the history of
ideas among the Arabs, shukr (thankfulness) became a religious
concept. The tremendous importance of this new concept will be seer
from the fact that it is, so to speak, the human counterpart of the
initial Divine Goodness, and is, in this way, inseparably linked with
one of the most characteristic aspects of the Divine nature, and alsc
from the fact that from ‘thankfulness’ to ‘belief or ‘faith’ it is
merely a matter of one step, so much so that in many cases shukr is
in the Qur’an almost synonymous with Fman (belief). This we saw
already when we discussed the concept of ayah.

The opposite of shukr is kufr, the proper meaning of which is
‘ungratefulness’ or ‘ingratitude’. Without any further explanation ii

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God and Man in the Qur’an

will be quite easy to see how this concept of ingratitude, which
before Islam, had nothing at all to do with religion, came to assume
in the Qur’anic system a peculiarly religious significance.

But before it began to be understood in this religious sense, the
conceptual structure itself was there in Jahiliyyah firmly established.
And no wonder, for even in ordinary mundane relations among men
the human ethics everywhere demands the actualization of this struc-
ture. When somebody has shown you some special favor, that is, has
conferred upon you a ni ‘mah, your natural reaction to it should be
gratitude and thankfulness. This is one of the most basic laws
governing the ethical relations among men. But it is also an
undeniable fact that there is an alternative reaction, which violates
this very basic moral law. And unfortunately, the human nature
seems to incite and instigate man to act very often in this way. As
the Qur’an itself says:

*i'j J oil—

Verily man is very ungrateful to his Lord!

Al-'Adiyat, 100:6 2

Verily, man is clearly ungrateful!

Al-Zukhruf 43:14 [15]

Thus, whether religious or non-
religious, ‘ingratitude’ or ‘ungrate-
fulness’ is the name of this way of
responding on the part of a man to
goodness shown by someone else.
This structure itself remains the

same regardless of whether the
ni ‘mah (favor) that has been confer-
red upon him be of a secular nature or of a religious nature. And the
pre-Islamic Arabs also used to live according to the dictates of the
supreme moral rule: “shukr for ni’mah”. The following verse by a
poet of the Hudhayl tribe brings out this conceptual structure in a
very clear and concise form:

Ethical Relation Between God and Man

257

If you thank me, (it is but natural, for by so doing) you would be
showing gratitude to me for a favor (ni‘mah) I have conferred upon
you, but if you take the attitude of kufr to me, I will never force upon
you gratitude to me . 3

And Salamah b. al-Khurshub, referring to a mare whose
unusually swift legs saved the life of a man out of the danger of
death:

A& Si % ikf ^ Qi Ju

Praise her well with a praise which is fitting, and be not ungrateful
(takfuran) to her, for there can be no good future for the ungrateful
(kafir ) 4

And ‘Antarah, still more tersely:

yiXJ tAi

Never be ungrateful for a favor . 5

The Qur’an takes up this structure just as it is and raises it up to
a religious level, as it does in many other cases. The conceptual
structure or formula is still exactly the same, but now it is made to
work on the higher level of spiritual relation between God and man,
the ni ‘mah being in this case the Divine favor to which man responds
either rightly with shukr or wrongly with kufr.

Quite naturally, the concept of shukr (gratitude) in this particular
semantic field develops easily into that of sincere ‘faith’ (iman), and
correspondingly, kufr, losing rapidly the original connotation of
‘ingratitude’, transforms itself into the concept of ‘disbelief, and thus
comes to stand in direct conceptual opposition to iman.

Cfi ill! gJ-4'

How shall God guide people who turn to disbelief after having

believed?

‘Ali ‘Imran, 3:80 [86]

258

God and Man in the Qur’an

Those who are haughty say: As for us, we disbelieve in that

which you believe in.

Al-A ‘rdf 7:74 [76]

This semantic transformation of kufr from ‘ingratitude’ to
‘disbelief was effected more completely than that of shukr from
‘gratitude’ to ‘belief, because in this latter case the existence of the
very word iman made unnecessary, or rather prevented, the growth
of another word which would replace it. While in the case of
‘disbelief, there was no such pre-existent word for the concept, and
so kufr just came in, so to speak, and took the vacant seat.

II. God of Wrath

To those who take kufr instead of shukr or iman, that is to those who
stubbornly refuse to humble themselves before God, and also to those
who are naturally careless and frivolous who spend their time in
jesting and playing, laughing, and merry-making, never thinking of
the Hereafter, in short, ‘indifferent’ and ‘careless’ people
[ghafilun ) — to those people God shows his other face.

Here Allah is God of stem unrelaxing justice, the unrelenting
Judge on the Day of Judgment, terrible in retribution {shadid al-
‘iqdb). Lord of vengeance (dhu intiqam), whose anger (ghadab ) will
hurl anybody into min on whom it alights. 6

This aspect of God has also been fully discussed by all those
who have ever studied the Qur’an from the religious point of view so
much so that it would seem unnecessary even to mention it now. So
here I will only take up the human side of the matter, the problem,
that is, how according to the Qur’an, man should respond to this
aspect of God.

The pivotal point of all this is the eschatological concept of the
Day of Judgment, with God Himself presiding over everything as the
stem, strict and righteous judge, before whom men stand only in
silence with bowed heads. The image of this decisive day should be
held up constantly before the eyes of men in such a way that it might
lead them to absolute earnestness, instead of levity and carelessness,
in life. And this is the dominant note of the Islamic piety. All readers
of the Qur’an cannot fail to notice, that this note of absolute

Ethical Relation Between God and Man

259

earnestness in life coming from the consciousness of the impending
Day of Judgment is particularly strong in the Makkan period. This is
taqwa in its original sense.

The word taqwa lost its extremely strong eschatological coloring
as time went on and finally came to mean practically the same thing
as ‘piety’. But it denoted originally a very peculiar mood connected
directly with the concept of the Judgment Day.

Fear God, for surely God is severe in punishment.

Al-Mct’idah,. 5:3 [2]

The combination of the three words ittiqa (fear), Allah and 'iqdb
(punishment) in this short sentence brings out very clearly the basic
structure of the Qur’anic taqwa in its original fottn. The taqwa in this
sense is an eschatological concept, meaning as it does “eschatological
fear of Divine chastisement”. From this original meaning comes the
meaning of ‘pious fear (of God)’, and then finally, ‘piety’ pure and
simple.

Now what did the word taqwa (or rather the verb ittaqa) mean
in Jahiliyyahl We must remark in the first place that in pre-Islamic
times the word was not commonly used in a religious sense at all,
except perhaps in the particular circle of the HanTfs and those who
were conspicuously under the influence of Judaism like the poet
Zuhayr b. Abl Sulma. The word muttaqi (from taqwa), ‘pious
believer’ (in the monotheistic sense) occurs, as we saw earlier, in the
poetry of the HanTf poet, Umayyah b. AbT al-Salt; also in the Diwan
of LabTd, whom I regard as almost a HanTf in his religious outlook.
Here I give an extremely interesting example from the Diwan of
Zuhayr b. AbT Sulma.

p-ry’j 1 isfa i jsj

The taqwa is of his nature. It is Allah Himself who guards him from
all fatal false steps and then (the principle of never breaking) ties of
blood. 7

That this was not normally the meaning of the word in

260

God and Man in the Qur’an

Jahiliyyah must be clear to all readers of pre-Is!amic literature. And
fortunately enough for our purpose, the verb ittaqa was one of the
favorite words of the pre-Islam ic poets. We meet with the word
almost everywhere, always with exactly the same basic conceptual
structure, and we have a great number of examples at hand. They
show definitely that the word did not cany any religious connotation,
let alone, the meaning of ‘piety’.

What is, then, the basic conceptual structure disclosed by these
examples? Nothing is more illuminating in this respect than the
formula given by al-TibnzT in his commentary on DTwan al-
Hamdsah * which runs:

ly*-U- Li juj ,SlL Ol sLL'Vl

Ittaqa means that you place between yourself (,4) and something you
are afraid of (B), something (C) which might protect you by preventing
it ( B ) from reaching you.

In short, it means self-defence by means of something. The general
situation is this: A man (A) perceives something ( B ) coming towards
him, which looks dangerous, destructive, or at least harmful. He does
not like it to reach him; he must stop it before it reaches him and
does harm to him. So he puts between himself and the thing ( B )
something (C) which is strong enough to stop its oncoming. All the
pre-Islamic instances of this verb, however complex and complicated
in outward form, are capable of being interpreted in terms of this
basic formula. Here are a few typical examples. The first one is from
the Mu ‘allaqah of ‘Antarah: 9

^ bl

When (my comrades) put me between themselves and the spears of the
enemies, (that is to say, when my friends pushed me ahead in front of
them so that they might protect themselves behind me, I myself being
their shield), I did not flinch at all; but— so he adds— (to my regret) I
could not in any case advance very much because there was no more

place left in front of me (i.e. there were so many enemies in front of
me).

He said (to himself): I will satisfy my desire (i.e. I will kill the mai
who has killed my brother), then I (A) will defend myself ( attaqi
against the enemies (B) (who will surely come to take revenge) witl
one thousand horses (C) all bridled in support of my cause.

The next example is somewhat more complicated, albeit with
exactly the same underlying structure. It comes from DTwan al-Mufa-
ddaliyyat. The poet is al-MarrSr b. Munqidh" who, although of the
Umayyad period, composed his poems in the typically Jdhili spirit.:

^ ^ ^

This is part of a description of the she-camel of the poet. My
she-camel, he says, guards herself ( tattaqi) from being hurt by the
stony ground with her hard hoofs. Literally: “She puts between
herself and the ground and sharp flint stones a hard one (i.e. hard
hoof) which is compact and with its ring of hair still intact.”

The Qur’an, too, offers an extremely interesting example in
which the verb ittaqa is used in exactly the same physical, and not
spiritual, sense.

Is a man who, on the Day of Resurrection, can only guard

himself against the evil of Divine chastisement with his face...

Al-Zumar, 39:25 [24]

The ironical implication being that on that day his hands, With which
he ordinarily defends himself against danger, are tied up to his neck
so thut he has only his face to defend himself with. The sentence
ilsell is led unfinished; the full meaning is somewhat like this: Is

262

God and Man in the Qur’an

such a man the same as those who are completely safe from
chastisement?

But this is rather an exceptional case in the Qur’an* there ittaqci
occurs almost always in contexts of a religious nature. In Jahiliyyah ,
on the contrary, the verb is mostly used in a physical or material
sense. The utmost to which Jahiliyyah goes in this direction is repre-
sented by those cases in which the word is used in a moral sense, i.e.
a degree more spiritualized than the purely physical and material
sense.

The following example 12 is of particular interest in this respect,
because it discloses the basic structure of this concept as applied to
the moral sphere of life:

y ja J 0 jA CJ

He who puts acts of generosity between his personal honor and (the
possible reproach by others) will make his honor increase more and
more, while he who does not guard himself (yattaqi ) in this way
against invectives will only be reviled.

It is interesting to note that the first half of the verse forms a
kind of structural definition of the concept of ittaqa. Exactly the
same thought is expressed in the following hemistich much more
tersely:

" 0 *

Every man of a noble nature guards himself against blame with
hospitality. 13

That is to say, he puts between himself, i.e. his personal honor, and
the possible blame by others his act of spending his wealth in
limitless hospitality.

We may rightly regard these cases in which the conceptual
structure under discussion is applied to the moral sphere as an
intermediate stage between the purely material iitiqa and the purely
spiritual, religious iitiqa.

The Hanlfitic conception, to which belongs the Qur’anic thought,
goes a step further and completely spiritualizes this conceptual struc-
luic. And yet the formal structure itself docs not change Here the

Ethical Relation Between God and Man

263

possible harm ( B ) is no longer an ordinary physical danger, but an
eschatological danger, i.e., the severe merciless punishment by God
Himself to be inflicted upon those who refuse to surrender and to
believe. In this context ittaqa means that one guards oneself against
the imminent danger of Divine chastisement by putting between it
and one’s own soul a protective shield of pious obedience and belief.
This interpretation is confirmed by the view taken by the authors of
TafsTr al-Jalalayn, according to which the verb ittaqa means “That
you guard yourself against the ‘iqab (Divine chastisement) by putting
between it and yourself the turs (shield) of ‘ibadah (worship) — lit.
‘abd- ness)”.

This basic structure is apparent in verses like the following:

Beware of the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones (i.e. idols), the
Fire prepared for the Kafirs.

Al-Baqarah, 2:22 [24] 14

Beware of a day when no soul shall take another ’s place.

Al-Baqarah, 2:45 [48]

Psychologically, this is a particular kind of ‘fear’ ( khawj ) — an
eschatological fear, as is shown by some verses, such as:

GiU- f*S ifi ills

Surely therein is a sign for him who fears (khafa) the
chastisement in the Hereafter.

Hud, 11:105 [103]

Say: Surely I fear (akhafu), if I should disobey the command of
my Lord, the chastisement of a dreadful day.

Al-An ‘am, 6: 1 5

264

God and Man in the Qur’an

The next verse is particularly important in this respect in that it
shows the intimate semantic relationship that exists between the
psychology of fear and taqwa.

o'

There shall be dark overshadowings of Fire above them , and
beneath them too (similar) overshadowings . That is, God
frightens fyukhawwifu, causative form of khawf) therewith His
servants: O My servants, therefore fear (ittaqu) Me!

Al-Zumar , 39:18 [16]

However, in course of time, this intense eschatological coloring
becomes lighter and lighter until at last the meaning of taqwa reaches
the stage, at which it has no longer any apparent connection with the
image of the Day of Judgment and its horrors, and becomes the
nearest equivalent of ‘piety’. At this stage, taqwa has little or nothing
to do with the concept of ‘fear’ ( khawj ). This is why, in the Qur’an,
the word muttaql — the participial form of ittaqa — is often used in the
sense of a ‘pious believer’ standing in opposition to kafir) 5

The muttaql at this stage is given a definition in the Qur’an
itself, which does not differ substantially from that of muslim or
mu’min. In the Surah al-Baqarah the muttaql is defined as “a man
who believes in the Unseen, performs the prayer regularly, expends
of that which God has provided him, who believes in what has been
sent down to the Prophet Muhammad and what has been sent down
before Muhammad, and has a firm faith in the Hereafter”. 16

It is very interesting to observe that this is reflected in the non-
Qur’anic literature of the earliest Islam, ‘Abdah b. al-TabTb, one of
the contemporaries of the Prophet says in a poem:

o* s-ttpyl J)**i dy

I enjoin upon you the tuqd ( =taqwd ) of God, for it is He who gives to,
and withholds from, whomsoever He likes all things that is valuable
and desirable. 17

Ethical Relation Between Uoa ana man

Here as we see, taqwa has nothing at all to do with eschatology
and the fear of punishment. This is clear from the very fact that
Divine goodness and favor arc mentioned as the reason for which
man should have taqwa of God.

III. Wa‘d and Wa‘Td

We have seen in the preceding that in the Qur’an God shows to men
two entirely different faces according as men are good or bad in the
religious sense; (1) a smiling face foreboding a bright future, pleasant
things to come and (2) a dark angry face foreboding something
gloomy and fatal. In this sense the problem is directly connected with
the communicative aspect of the relation between God and man.

God communicates to man by these two different faces two
different things concerning the ultimate destiny of man. This aspect
of the matter is dealt with in the Qur’an in terms of four mutually
related key-words.

(i)

( 1 !)

The conceptual structure of the first pair {wa 'ada-aw 'add) may
be analyzed in the following way. (1) There are on the stage two
persons A, B (two-person-relation word). (2) A tells B something.
This means that the concept under discussion is a linguistic one.
Furthermore, it is not an ordinary linguistic concept, but a weakened
form of ‘oath’. (3) The content of this information concerns some-
thing which A will do and which will bring about some new crucial
situation into which B will be forcibly and unavoidably put. This
information is given in a conditional form: if B does (or does not) dt
such and such a thing, then such and such a thing shall happen to B
(4) If this new situation happens to be something pleasant, delightfu
and agrecnblc from the point of view of B, then it is wa'adi
(nominal form wa‘d)\ if, on the contrary, it is something harmful

266

God and Man in the Qur’an

destructive and disagreeable, then it is aw ‘ada (nominal form: wa ‘id).

In the concrete Qur’anic context, the first pair concerns the
action of God Himself. In other words, A who informs B of all this
happens to be God.

The second pair is of quite a different nature from this. A simple
analysis of its basic structure will make it clear at once.

(1) There are on the stage three persons A, B and C (three-
person-relation word). (2) The general situation, as far as concerns
the basic relation between A and B, remains exactly the same. Only,
A, in this case, does not inform B directly of what will happen. There
is no direct connection between the two. The task of establishing a
connection is given to another person C. C knows the actual
situation; he goes from A’s side to B as a ‘messenger’ and tells him
that such and such a thing is sure to happen to B. In the Qur’an, C
is of course the Prophet. In this respect the Prophet appears on the
stage in the capacity of either bashTr or nadhTr, according as the news
he conveys is something good for B or bad. In the Qur’anic
conception, this is an extremely important point regarding the
function of a Prophet. The Qur’an insists constantly that Muhammad
is only a ‘wamer’.

Say: Verily I am the clear warner (nadhTr).

Al-Hijr, 15:89

Thou art only a Warner (nadhTr).

Hud, 11:15 [12]

His function consists in warning unbelieving people that there
will be Judgment followed by a dreadful pu ni shment in the Hereafter.
The same is true of the concept of bashTr. Only, there seems to be a
slight difference between bashTr and nadhTr. According to the ana-
lysis done by Ibn al-‘Arabr (author of the book Ahkam al-Qur’an ), 18
al-basharah is not only an information given about something desi-
rable but, the bashTr should always be the first person to convey the
good news, awwalu mukhbirin bi-l-mahbiibT, while al-nadhdrah is an

Ethical Relation Between God and Man

267

information given about something unpleasant and anybody who
imparts this information is nadhTr, the concept does not contain the
condition of the informant being the first person to do it.

The following verse of ‘Antarah 19 is interesting in that it presents
the most important of the related concepts gathered in one place.

i y j oiSo ' bbi aJ jXi ^ ^ j

What the poet wants to emphasize is that the future is essentially
unpredictable so that it is absolute folly to be worried about what is
yet to come. “How many times”, he says “has a wamer who has
come to bid us be on our guard against something bad turned out
ultimately to be a messenger of delightful things bringing a good
news”.

It goes without saying that the second pair is most intimately
related to the first pair and is based upon it. The following verse 20
brings out this connection very well.

c, y> Jys - jf

Very often a mighty Lord of a kingdom has threatened (aw ’ada) me,
and warnings from him have reached me before he came to me
himself.

We may notice that in the verse that follows this immediately (44),
the poet describes this mighty king as choking with rage just as the
eyes of a leopard in anger are kindled with fire, which shows the
situation very clearly.

As regards the contrast between wa ‘ada and aw ‘ada, we must
remark that in Jahiliyyah, the distinction is sometimes strictly made,
sometimes not.

4 tOutfl OUJ>- J

My nature is such that when I have threatened (aw'ada) him or
promised ( wa'ada ) him something good, 1 am inclined to leave
unfulfilled my threat (Vdd-wa^d), but bring to pass my promise
{maw'id^wu V/), 21

268

God and Man in the Qur’an

Ethical Relation Between God and Man 269

In this verse which has been attributed also to Tarafah, the most
definite distinction is made between the two, while in other places the
two verbs are often used indiscriminately. Likewise, in the Qur’an,
the distinction is rather loose. Just to give one example:

j\j JLP

Allah has promised (wa ' ada ) the hypocrites , men and women ,
and the disbelievers the Fire of Hell.

Al-Tawbah, 9:69 [68]

And the Kafirs of Makkah say sarcastically to the Muslims in
reference to the Day of Judgment:

When will this promise (wa'd, meaning waTd) come true, if
what you say is true?

Yd STn , 36:48 22

As is well known, this distinction develops into an exceedingly
important theological problem in early Islam, as is witnessed by the
rise of a sect in the Mu‘tazilah school of theology known under the
name of ahl al-wa Td (People of Threat) or al-Wa Tdiyyah headed by
al-JubbaT. Semantically, this is a very interesting problem, but here
we must leave the subject untouched because a discussion of
problems of this sort would take us far beyond the scope of the
present study.

6. 20:83 [81]

I. DTwdn Zuhayr, p. 162, v. 2.

8. CCLIV, v. 5.

9. Mu'allaqah v. 64.

10. Mu'allaqah, v. 36, DTwdn , p. 22, v. 2.

II. al-Mufaddaliyyat , XVI, v. 30.

12. Mu‘allaqah, Zuhayr , v. 51.

13. ‘Amr b. al-Ahtam, al-Hamasah , DCCXIII, v. 4.

14. The earlier commentators are of the opinion that by “stone” (hijarah)
is meant “black brimstone” in Hell with which the damned will be
tormented; cf. al-Tabari, JdmV al-Baydn , ad. loc.

15. For example, 4:130 [131].

16. 2:2-3 [3-4].

17. al-Mufaddaliyyat , XXVII, v. 7.

18. Cairo, 1957, Vol. I, p. 15.

19. DTwdn , p. 85, v. 5.

20. The poet is al-Marrar b. Munqidh, al-Mufaddaliyyat , XVI, v. 43.

21. ‘Amir b. al-Tufayl, DTwdn , Beirut, 1959, XVII, v. 2.

22. According to al-Farra’ the word wa ( d may be used in two senses: wide
and narrow. When used in the wide sense it makes no distinction
between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ( wa'ad-tu-hu khayran, “I promised him
something good” and wa!ad-tu-hu sharran, “I promised him something
bad”). In the narrower sense, it is only applied to khayr , leaving the
“promise of bad things (i.e. threatening)” to wa'Td, cf. Ibn Qutaybah:
Adab al-Kdtib, Cairo, 1958, pp. 271-272.

Notes

1. For a philological analysis of the key-terms of this field, see Daud
Rahbar, op. cit , chapter XIII and chapter XVIII.

2. kanud is a synonym of kafur.

3. al-‘Ajlfln b. Khulayd, DTwdn al-Hudhliyym y III, p. 113, v. I.

4. al-Mufaddaliyy&t, V, v. 7.

5. DTwdn , p. 46, v. 3; nu i md=ni , mah

References

‘Abld b. al-Abras: DTwan , Beirut, 1958.

al-Abshihl, Baha’ al-Dln: al-Mustatraf ft Kull Fann Mustazraf,

Cairo, 1368H.

‘Amir b. al-Tufayl: DTwan , Beirut, 1959.

‘Amr b. QamT’ah: DTwan , ed. Lyall, Cambridge, 1919.

‘Antarah: DTwan , ed. ‘Abd al-Ra’Qf, Cairo, no date.

Arberry, A.J.: The Seven Odes , London, 1957.
al-A’sha al-Akbar: DTwan , ed. Muhammad Husayn, Cairo, 1950.
al-BaydawI: Anwar al-TanzTl wa-Asrdr al-Ta’wTl , 2 vols., Cairo, 1939.
Brunner J.S., Goodnow J.J., Austin G.A.: A Study in Thinking , New York,
1956.

Bustanl, Fu’ad (Ed.): al-Majdm al-HadTthah , Beirut, I, 1946, II, 1950.
Calverley, E. E.: Worship in Islam , Madras, 1925.

Caskel, Werner: Das Schicksal in der altarabischen Poesie , Leipzig, 1926.
Darwazah, Muhammad; al-Dustur al-Qur’anT ft Sku’un al-Hayah, Cairo,
1956.

Goichon, A.M.: Philosophie d’Avicenne et son influence en Europe
medievale, Paris, 1951.

Goldzieher, Ignaz: Richtungen der Islamischen Koran-auslegung, Leiden,
1920.

Goldzieher, Ignaz: Muhammedanische Studien I, Halle, 1888.

Goldzieher, Ignaz: Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie I, Leiden, 1 896.
al-Ghazall: Tahdfut al-Falasifat , ed. SulaymSn Dunya, Cairo, 1947.
Guillaume, Alfred: Prophecy and Divination, London, 1938.
al-Hamasah, DTwan (al-MarzOql recention), 4 vols, Cairo, 1951.
al-Hamasah, DTwan (al-TibrlzT’ recention), 2 vols, Cairo, 1955.

Hassan ibn Thabit: DTwan, ed. Hirschfeld, London, 1910.

Henle, Paul (Ed.): Language, Thought, and Culture, Michigan, 1958.
al-Hudhaliyym , DTwan, 3 vols, Cairo, 1945-1950.

Ibn al-‘Arabi: Ahkam al-Qur’dn, 4 vols, Cairo, 1957-1958.

Ibn Hanbal: al-Musnad, ed. Shakir, 12 vols, Cairo, 1949-1953.

Ibn Ishaq-Ibn Hisham: STrah Rasul Allah , ed. Wttstenfeld, 3A^ols, Gdttingen
1859-1860.

271

272

God and Man in the Qur’an

References

273

Ibn Khaldun: al-Muqaddimah , ed. al-WafT, vol. I, Cairo, 1957. '

Ibn Manzur: Lisan al-‘Arab , vol. XII, Beirut, 1956.

Ibn Qutaybah: Adab al-Katib, Cairo, 1958.

Imam al-Haramayn, al-Juwaynl: al-Irshad , ed. Yusuf Musa & ‘All ‘Abd al-
Mun‘im ‘Abd al-Hamld, Cairo, 1950.

Imr’ al-Qays: DTwan , ed. Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim, Cairo, 1958.
Izutsu, Toshihiko: The Structure of the Ethical Terms in the Koran , Tokyo,
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Izutsu, Toshihiko: Language and Magic , Studies in the Magical Function of
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Jeffery, Arthur: The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an, Baroda, 1938.
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Leisi, Ernst: Der Wortinhalt, seine Struktur im Deutschen und Englischen,
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Lyall, Charles: Ancient Arabian Poetry, London, 1930.
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Taymflr, Mahmud: Mu* jam al-Hadarah , Cairo, 1961.
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Umajja ibn Abis Salt: Die unter seinem Namen uberlieferten
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‘Urwah b. al-Ward: DTwan, ed. Karam al-Bustanl, Beirut, 1953.

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Watt, Montgomery: Muhammad at Medina , Oxford, 1956.

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Weisgerber, Leo: Grundformen sprachlicher Weltgestaltung, Koln u.
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Yaqut: Mujam al-Buldan , ed. F. Wustenfeld, 6 vols., Leipzig, 1866-73.
Zuhayr b. AbT Sulma: DTwan, Cairo, 1944.

Index

Abbasid 45, 60, 95, 118, 119, 121,
207

period 20

Arab authorities of 95
'abd 29, 71, 72, 78,112,113, 141,
216,219, 221,237, 238, 253,
263

'abd- ness 219, 221
‘Abdah b. al-Tablb 264
‘Abld al-Abras 161
‘Ablah 29, 88, 89, 235
Abraham 81, 97, 117-119, 250
‘Adi b. Zayd 109, 110, 115
'dlam al-ghayb 83, 85
‘Alqamah al-Fahl 171, 213
‘A’ishah 181, 187, 190
‘Amr b. Kulthum 245
‘Antarah 8, 29, 85, 87, 88, 95, 98,
99, 128, 129, 141, 160, 168,
213, 257, 260
‘Antarah’s DTwan 89
'aql 47, 62-65, 67, 144, 230, 233,
234
'arsh 18

Abu Dhu’ayb 98, 252
Abu Hanifah 162
Abu Qabus 115
Abu ‘Ubaydah 118
Abyssinians 111
Abyssinia 111
Ahkam al-Qur’an 266
ahl 12 , 60, 80, 82, 268
ahl al-kitdb
Amin, Ahmad, 66, 73
ahwd ' 58-60, 72
ajal 135-139

a 'jam 202, 203
ayamf201, 202
'Ajam 201-203
'ajz 226, 227
akhirah 86, 87, 89
'dlam al-shahdddh 83
al-Asghar, ‘Amr b. al-Harith 116
al-Bahilt, ‘Amr b. Ahmar, 224
al-Ghazzall, Abu Hamid 71
al-RazI, Fakhr al-Dln 207
al-Yashkurl, Ba‘ith b. Suraym, 129
alihah 7, 38

Allah 4-9, 12, 14, 18, 23-25, 29,
30, 37, 40, 41, 44-48, 60, 70,
71, 76, 77, 84, 93, 100-112,
114-117, 119-125, 131, 136-
141, 144, 161, 163-165, 176,
185, 192, 193,211,214,216,
222, 226, 235, 255, 258, 259,
268

Arabian concept of 1 10
as the Creator 5, 78, 106,
107, 114, 121, 127-128,
130, 136, 140, 186
association between ‘creation’
(khalq) and 128
conception of the nature of 7
name of 36, 38, 101, 108,
123, 128, 130
alms-giving 55
dmana 15, 16, 22, 24
amthdl 56

analytic philosophy 2
analytic study 3 /

angel-worship 8
angelic hierarchy 8

275

276

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

211

angels 8, 9, 29, 120, 127, 216, 233
anthropology 2

apostle of God 53, 59, 113, 159,
190

' Arab 72, 156, 162, 201
Arab, Christian(s) 104, 110, 111
conception of human virtue 5,
7, 8, 10, 39, 79, 182
concept of Allah 105
heathenism 184
mind 67, 219
people 202
tribes 102
world 73, 117
Arab-ness 207

Arabia 5, 21, 36, 51, 70, 79, 82,
87, 89, 93, 105, . 106, 109,

111, 112, 122, 125, 126, 204,
205, 222, 231

ancient 8, 40, 56, 182, 187,
215

Arabian, ethics 222
nabiy 197

paganism 87, 95, 106, 114
poetry 99, 182
Prophet 200, 206
religion 218

Weltanschauung of nomadism
36

Arabic 9, 14, 20, 35, 36, 38-40,
42, 47, 60-62, 64-70, 72,

112, 125, 144, 155, 164,
167-169, 171, 172, 176, 179,
182, 184, 187, 192, 198-208,
213, 234, 240, 246, 252
genuine 38, 62, 64
literature 67, 95, 198, 204
modem 64, 65

old 40, 198
Qur’an 200
stock 196

Arabization, of the Hellenistic

heritage 45

of present-day Egypt 73
Arabs 5-8, 36, 38, 47, 56, 62,
66-68, 72, 80-82, 85, 87-89,
91-95, 101-109, 112, 114,

115, 118, 119, 122, 128-131,
135, 139, 155, 159, 161, 168,
169, 171-173, 182, 185-188,
193, 196, 200, 201, 203-208,
213, 216, 219-221, 223, 229-
231, 235-238, 248, 249, 255,
256

contemporary 104
cultural history of the 18
idolatrous 80
in Muhammad’s time 181
moral ideas of 40
non-Muslim 14
of Makkah 101, 103
pagan 80, 94, 101-104, 107,
108, 111, 115, 123, 181,
185, 188, 221, 229, 236,
237

polytheist 51
Aristotelian, concept 48
sense 22

subject-substance 69
Aristotle 66, 68
Ash‘ari, al- 54

A‘sha al-Akbar, al- 105, 111, 112,
160, 178, 183, 204
Asma‘1, al- 87
associative 21, 27, 28
attributes 44, 45, 141, 166
Avicenna 71

ayah 98, 142-146, 148-150, 154,
173, 255

dydt 15, 46, 63, 71, 78, 86,
142-146, 148-151, 153, 154,
158, 163,211,214, 232, 236,
255

of Allah 144

Ayyub 112

baghy 233
balagh 193

Banu Asad b. ‘Abd al-‘Uzza 112,
244
ban 130

basic meaning 1143, 14, 16, 17,
19, 21, 37, 53, 55, 62, 66, 69,
86, 102, 103, 112, 117, 150,
159, 165, 202, 229, 242, 251.
basic semantic core 10, 16
bath 13, 94
bdtil 6, 38, 146
Baydawl, al- 178
bayyindt 232
Beatific Vision 71
‘becoming’ 68
Bedouin, genuine 204, 205
mentality 206
poet 104, 115
tradition 144
vocabulary 36
Bedouin-ness 205
Bedouins 8, 50, 102, 196, 204, 206
‘being’ 68, 69, 76
being and existence 7, 45, 66, 86,
127, 131

belief 4, 14,15, 22, 23,41,49, 50,
54, 79, 92, 95, 102, 105, 114,
118, 123, 139, 146, 149, 183,
206, 249, 255, 263
in Allah 41, 102, 123
Benjamin 244
Bertrand Russel 71
Bible 104, 120

Biblical 93, 102, 104, 111, 112,
117, 120, 175, 196;
acceptation 1 17
concept of ndbhr' 196
KCCIICN 175
biology 2

Bishops of Najran 112
book 1-3, 10-12, 28, 30-32, 35, 61,
66, 71-76, 81, 94, 98, 144,
145, 164, 200, 202, 203,207,
214, 222, 236, 251, 252, 266
Book of Moses 30
Book of Revelation 12, 80, 97
Book on Poetry and Poets 93
Bukhari, al- 113, 214
Byzantine empire 111
Byzantium 110

Central Arabia 109
Christ 110, 119
and Allah 125
Christian, communities 8 1

concept of Allah 110, 115
Court of al-HTrah 87
Ghassan 116
God 116

and Jewish religious ideas 93
kings 115

literature in Arabic 87
powers 111
slaves 112, 201

Christianity 87, 93, 105, 110, 112 ;

113, 115, 118, 164, 248, 254
Christians 12, 36, 70, 80, 82, 102
110-112, 115, 117, 122, 204
248-250
of Ghassan 248
pre-Islamic 38, 104, 111
civilization, ancient 105
ancient world of 5 1
Islamic 105

classical, age of Islamic culture 4]
age of Islam 42
Arabic 65, 234
period of Islam 43
communication, animal 166

from God to man 142, 143
189

278

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

27V

in the ascending direction
158, 208
unilateral 170

community 11, 16, 21, 27, 51, 53,
79, 80, 82, 83, 90, 97, 159,
179, 196, 199, 201,203,206,
231, 248, 249

Companions 59, 72, 156, 177
concept, of angel of death 29
of dydt 71, 151
of Foreordination 139
of Islam 54, 55,81,217, 222,
238, 247
of ummiyyun 80
of Way 25, 154, 194
Concepts 3-5, 7, 10-12, 20, 23,
25-28, 34, 37, 38, 43, 44,
47-49, 51, 54, 55, 60, 61,
68-70, 72, 78, 83, 86, 89-91,
93-96, 98, 101, 109, 112,

114, 120, 122, 151, 153-157,
175, 198, 201,205,214,217,
218,223,236, 237, 239, 240,
247, 250, 267

traditional JahilT system of
103

conceptual, analysis 2, 71

associations 4, 13, 60, 255
battle 146
coherence 37

network 4, 5, 13, 23, 61, 155,
236

opposition 51, 75-76, 83-83,
89, 153, 257
poles 77
problems 2

structure 18, 44-45, 68, 89,
146, 171, 256-257, 260,
262, 265

structure of al-dkhirah 89
system 4, 7, 10, 13, 24, 48,
51, 55, 62, 91, 103, 130

system of Jdhiliyyah 38
system of old Arabia 21
systems 5, 13, 21, 26, 37, 42,
43, 60

connections 7, 21
contextual analysis 223
cosmic ‘Mover’ 48
Creation 47, 48, 120, 127-131, 137
Creator-creature relation 78
creatureliness 129, 130
cultural, concepts 3
languages 60, 164

Dahr 132-135, 137, 141
dalal 25-27, 81, 151-154
Baud Rahbar 71, 97, 139, 268
Dawn of Islam 66
Day of Judgment 9, 14, 84, 91,
139, 149, 196, 242, 258, 259,
264, 268

Day of Reckoning 92, 93
Death 8, 29, 63, 87, 94, 95, 108,
119, 130-135, 137-139, 146,
155, 168, 202, 209, 241, 257
inevitability of death 131, 138
democracy 64
demons 8, 177
derived knowledge 56
determinism 135
dhat 44
diachronic 32
diachrony 33

dichotomy, principle of 89
differentiation, principle of 23
dimuqratiyyah 64
din 13, 119, 120, 125, 207, 214,
239-253

din al-hamfiyyah 120, 248

din al-hunafa\ 119

disbelief 23, 25, 54, 81, 149, 257

disobedience 23

divina commcdia 86, 127, 222

divine, act 78, 146, 148, 149, 151,
152

attributes 44, 45
chastisement 10, 79, 259,
261, 263

communication 143
Decree 140
Foreordination 139
Goodness 15, 46, 148, 255,
265

Guidance 50, 58, 120, 150,
152, 236
Haqq 57
hierarchy 6
hilm 228
initiative 254
intention 151
intervention 143
messenger 191, 192
predestination 30
Presence 46, 120
Providence 9, 143
response 2 1 1

Revelation 1 1, 14, 42, 57, 59,
120, 193, 194, 196, 201,
203

Will 50, 145, 152, 196, 217
Words 12, 189, 191-194, 261,
263

wrath 63
divinities 6

Dlwdn al-Hamdsah 71, 98, 99
Dlwan of Hudhayl tribe 134, 140
Dtwan al-Mufaddaliyyat 99, 261
DTwdn of Zuhayr b. AbT Sulma
259

du‘d 158, 212
Du'd', al- 208

dunyd 86-88,90,91, 120, 138, 139
structure of the 96
Durkhcim 199
dynasty ol ( ihnssSn 1 1 1

Edward Sapir 28
Egypt 73, 224, 244
electronic engineering 2
Emperor Tiberius II 110
English language 18
eschatological, associations 14
coloring 13, 259
field 13
ideas 123
essence 44, 64
essential Divine attributes 45
eternal life 131, 136, 138
ethical 10, 30, 72, 78, 79, 97, 140,
215, 222, 236, 239, 254, 256
Ethiopean Timtim 203
Ethiopians 187

etymology 2, 17, 33, 117, 159,
161, 165, 240
Evangel 113

Fadak 112, 244
fait social 199

faith 15, 18, 24, 37, 55, 71, 106,
108, 114, 116, 158, 209, 248,
249, 264

Fajr al-Islam 66, 73
false 6, 23, 145, 148, 149, 177,
211, 259

falsehood 145, 150, 167
Farra’, al- 269
‘Fate’ 133
ft sabil Allah 41
Find al-Zimmanl, al- 141
Fire of Hell 90, 268
fitrah 118

Five Pillars of Islam 55
focus-word 22-25, 27, 37, 44, 55,
76, 134, 145, 150 /
fundamental, structure Of things 76,
216

world-view 92

280

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

281

Gabriel 9, 120, 192, 193, 200
genesis 68
Germans 68, 194
Gestalt 4, 1 1
ghafur 44
Ghassanids 112
Ghassaniyyat 116
ghawayah 26, 154
ghayb 83-85, 98, 185, 196, 207
Gibb, Hamilton A. R. 122, 126
God 1,4-9, 18, 23-25, 30, 40, 44,
50, 53-55, 57-60, 63, 71, 72,
74, 76-84, 86, 87, 91, 93, 96,
97, 100-107, 111-122, 124,
126-130, 137-140, 142-146,
148, 150-155, 157-160, 162-
165, 167, 168, 174-177, 179,
180, 185, 186, 189, 190, 192-
196, 200, 203, 206-212,216-
219, 221, 226, 229, 233,
235-240, 244-247, 249, 251,
252, 255, 257-259, 263-266
Arabian 116
Biblical 102, 111-112
belief in 14-15
concept of God 37, 38, 46,
78, 100, 101, 104-106,
111, 114, 117, 142, 254
His act of sending down
the ay at 151
His goodness 14
His way 41

His will 151, 152, 232
His idlal 152
nature of 44
new name of 101
of justice 153
of the Qur’an 46, 48, 254
will of 137, 139, 142, 174
god-fearing 78, 121
gods 5-8, 121, 211, 236
Goldzieher 222

grammar 30

gratitude 49, 149, 256, 257
towards God 15
Great Lord 114, 221, 237
Greek 64-69, 100, 102, 111, 112,
114, 171, 208
concept 65-66
concept of nous 64
concepts 61
ideas 47
influence 43
mind 67
model 61
nous 65

philosophy 61, 66
philosophical mind 68
philosophical terms 62
thinkers 66
to on 69

way of thinking 44
words 62

Hddf 156, 157

hadith 8, 50, 52, 59, 71, 79, 113,
118, 125, 180, 187, 190, 191,
202, 213, 232
hajj 55, 200, 233, 249
Half 72, 80, 97, 112, 138, 146,
155, 214, 247, 249, 257
halfm 222, 224-228, 230, 231, 235,
237, 239, 252
hamfyat al-jdhiliyyah 229
Hanfjitic , problematic — system
36

religion 81, 120
tradition 122
hanffiyyah 122

Hanlfs 70, 106, 117, 118, 122,
139, 259
Hannad 112

Haqq 6, 38, 57, 145, 186
HarQn, ‘Abd al-Salam

hashr 95

Hassan Ibn Thabit 184, 197, 234
hatif 65, 72
hawd 58, 60, 72, 120
hawadith 133
haydt al-dunya, al- 86
heart 50, 54, 85, 148, 158, 178,
189, 192, 200, 210, 217, 225
Heavenly Record 92
Heavenly Throne 18
Hebrew 113, 119, 125, 187, 206,
215, 240

prophetic books 195
prophets 196
scripture 114

Hell 9, 50, 51, 89, 90, 120, 122,
151, 186, 196, 268, 269
Hellenistic, philosophy 64

virtue of ‘non-pertubation’
230

Hereafter 54, 58, 86, 87, 89-92, 96,
98, 125, 131, 138, 139, 161,
258, 263, 264, 266
Hija’ poetry 215
hi jab 46

hilm 45, 46, 55-60, 71, 222-228,
230, 231, 233-239
HTrah, al- 87, 104, 109, 110, 112,
115

hisdb 13, 92

history, of Arabic 20, 204
of Islam 15, 69, 79, 208
ho theos 102, 103, 112
Holy Scripture 119
Holy Spirit 191
Homs 205

Hour 14, 29, 30, 84, 136, 210
hudd 26, 50, 120, 151, 152, 156,
236

lludhayl tribe 85, 134, 140, 241,
256

hujjah 119

human beings 6, 9, 76, 143, 164,
174, 175, 186, 224, 236, 255
human,

affairs 100, 136, 143
analytic thought 166
destiny 58, 130, 131, 134,
220

ethics 256

existences, 78, 87, 130, 131,
133, 136, 138, 139
free will 30
freedom 153
goodness 254
intellect 43, 231
linguistic behaviour 166
mind 63, 84, 120, 127, 145,
163, 174
perception 85
power 219, 221, 236
reality 239
soul 58, 177, 181
speech act 167
speech behaviour 165, 167
humility 216-219, 226, 238, 245
Hurqah 87

Husayn b. al-Human, al- 202

7 bddah 210, 217, 263

Ibn al-‘Arabi 266

Ibn Khaldun 181, 190, 195

Ibn Qutaybah 119, 121, 269

Ibn Rushd 69

Ibn Slna 71

Ibn Taymiyyah 48

Ibrahim 119

Ishmael 119

idol-worshippers 117, 128
idols 102, 121, 128, 210, 212, 263
ignorant philosopher^ 48
ihtidd 26

i‘jdz al-Qur’dn 195
ilhdm 174, 190

282

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

28.1

‘ilm 45, 46, 55-60, 71, 222, 234
as human phenomenon 57
Imdm al-Haramayn 72
man 4, 14, 15, 18, 22, 24, 25, 30,
49, 50, 54, 55, 60, 71, 72,
146, 149, 150, 255, 257, 258
man-field 14
immutable laws 67
Imr’ al-Qays 141, 182, 213
indhar 148
Indian 208

individual, concepts 4, 10, 69
substance 69
infidel 4, 18, 44, 49
ingratitude 14, 256
insan 76, 77

inspiration 8, 177, 182-187, 189,
192, 194, 197-199
intellect 43, 47, 64, 67, 107, 123,
144, 231, 234
intercession 6
invisible spiritual being 8
slrat 25, 26, 154
‘iqdb 258, 259, 263
Islam 2, 4-6, 8, 10, 18, 21, 23, 24,
29, 30, 33, 35, 40, 42, 43, 46,
48-51, 53-55, 60, 61, 66, 70,
73, 77, 79-81, 83, 91, 101,
103-105, 114, 119, 122-124,
139, 155, 158, 159, 161, 164,
172, 178, 179, 182, 184, 193,
195, 199, 203, 204, 206, 207,
213, 216-220, 222-224, 228,
235, 236, 238, 239, 247, 251,
253-256, 264, 268;
advent of 67, 80, 93
as a religion 15, 51
institutions of 159
nascent community of 5 1
structuralization of 53
theologians of 71

Islamic 4-8, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 21,

28-32, 35-40, 43, 45, 47-49,
53-64, 66-72, 81-83, 85-90,
92, 94-97, 100-107, 109, 111,
117, 118, 120, 122, 126,
128-131, 133, 135-139, 141,
146, 149, 157, 159, 160, 166,
169, 171-173, 176, 182-184,
196-198, 202, 203, 216,
219-223, 225, 229, 234-238,
241, 243, 245, 248, 249, 251,
252, 254, 256, 258-260
community 51, 53, 82, 83
concept of Allah 29, 123
concept of God 100, 104
conception of the supreme
God 7

conceptual system 12, 103
culture 30, 42, 97, 164, 207-
208
era 107

history 97, 207
monotheism 10, 51
monotheist 5 1
piety 258

Revelation 4, 47, 103
sphere of concepts 5 1
system 10, 53, 71, 103, 136-
137

system of concepts 10
theologians 6

theology 14, 30-31, 42-43,
48, 51, 54, 59, 70, 139
Tradition 118
ummah 79, 81-82
Islamists 2
islamization 5 1
IsmaTl 119
Israelites 206
istijabah 211
'isyan 23

ittiba' al-ahwa' 58
Iy3s b. al-Aratt 98, 141

jahannam 89-91, 151
jdhil 145, 161, 219, 221-225,
228-233, 237, 239
jdhil - ness 221, 223
Jdhili 36-38, 56, 66, 77, 79, 87,
104,108,118-120,122, 140,
141, 181, 182, 186, 223,224,
241, 248, 261

Arabs 91, 104, 108, 112, 129-
131, 155, 161, 216, 220-
221

conception of Allah 70
human values 220
ideal 41

literature 85, 118, 241
mind 29, 112, 130-131
system 37-38, 103, 109, 131,
136

view of life 87, 138
Weltanschauung 94, 103, 130
Jahiliyyah 6, 8, 10, 30, 36, 38, 39,
56, 57, 60, 64, 77-79, 85, 92,
95, 96, 101, 103-106, 108,
111, 112, 115, 116, 118, 122,
128, 130, 137, 138, 155, 156,
160, 186, 199, 202, 204, 212,
216, 220-223, 229, 230, 235,
238, 248, 251,256, 259, 260,
262, 267

late 21, 89, 93, 106
pessimism of 134
spirit of 220
jahl 222-225, 228-239
y'a/i/-mentality 236
jannah 89-91, 151, 213
Jerusalem 205
Jesus Christ 1 19
Jewish, and C'hristian ideas 106
centers 93
imagery 120
piosclyles 1 12
tribes 1 1 2

Jews 12, 30, 38, 70, 80, 82, 102
104, 111, 112, 115, 122, 165.
194, 204, 249, 250
Jibril 9, 120, 192
jinn 8, 9, 77, 85, 127, 177.

182-189, 192, 214
Jinn Mishal 183
John 183
Joseph 224, 244
Jubba‘1, al- 268

Judaism 8, 70, 87, 112, 115, 118..
164, 254, 259

Judeo-Christian 36, 70, 93, 94,
112, 114, 115
religious imagery 90
Judgment Day 95, 259
Jumayh al-Asadl, al- 99
jurisprudence 30, 42, 61, 83
JuwaynT, al- 72

Ka'bah 5, 106, 109-111
kafara 14-16, 30

kafir 4, 15, 18, 44, 49, 51-53, 239,
257, 264

kdhin 182, 186-189, 197
kdhin Satlh 187
kalim Allah 176
karam 40
karlm 39-41
Karramites 54, 72
karramiyah 54, 72
kawn 68

key-term 11, 17, 24, 26, 39, 41
57, 59, 61, 63, 228, 240
key-terms 3, 4, 11, 18, 19, 21, 24
32, 33, 39, 42-44, 47-49, 64
83, 91, 146, 216, 218, 235
240, 250, 251, 268
Khadljah 113
Khalaf b. KhalTfah 227
khdliq 130
khalq 48, 128, 130

284

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

285

KharijI 5 1
Kharijite 71
Kharijites 51
Kharijiyyah 51
Khaybar 93, 112
khulud 138

problem of 131
khushu' 217, 218
king ‘Amr 111, 116, 244
king al-Harith 133
king Jabalah II 112
king al-Nu‘man III 109
kingdom 120, 121, 205, 267
KirmanT, al- 180, 209, 214
Kisra Anushirwan 110, 213
kitdb 11, 12, 72, 73, 80-82, 92,
139-141, 206

knowledge 2, 5, 17, 29, 46, 52,
54-60, 72, 84, 85, 98, 111,
112, 114, 138, 143, 156, 182,
184, 185, 190, 234, 235
by acquaintance 55, 71
by inference 55-56, 71
pseudo- 57

Koran 30, 72, 97, 140, 194
kuffar 9, 80

kufr 15, 18, 23-26, 29, 30, 49, 51,
54, 60, 78, 146, 149, 150,
223, 255, 257, 258
semantic field of 25-26

la ‘ib 98

Labid 105, 111, 139, 141, 144,
161, 172, 204, 259
lahw 98

Lamiyyah al-'Arab 72, 156
language, community 179
of Revelation 42
of the Qur’an 3, 35, 41, 203,
206

Last Day 14, 41, 91, 92
Last Judgment 13, 120

Latin 61, 62, 69, 161
Lebanon 73

linguistic, communication 168,
176, 179, 180
event 189, 209
phenomenon 167, 198
signs 142, 208
linguistics 2, 33, 179
modem 179

lisdn 54, 162, 164, 179, 201
Lord, of Creation 48

of Ka‘bah 106, 110, 111
of Makkan sanctuary 109
of vengeance 258
-servant relation 78, 79, 126,
130, 216, 240
Lord Russel 55
Lyall, Charles 99, 125, 140

Ma’ al-Sama’, ‘Amr b. Hind b. al-
Mundhir 244
Ma‘bad b. ‘Alqamah 230
Ma‘qil.b. Khuwaylid 98
ma ' rifah 46, 47
Madmah 70, 82, 83, 192

Prophet’s migration to 35,
231

Madman 35, 82, 117
Surahs 117

MafatTh al-Ghayb 207
maghfirah 255
magical phenomenon 198
Makkah 36, 55, 101, 103, 109,
110, 112, 114, 119, 159, 185,
193, 236, 249, 268
mercantile society of 5
Makkan 35, 103, 109, 123, 191,
259

pilgrimage to 55, 249
polytheists 5
Shrine 110, 161

Makkans 91, 92. 112, 122, 159.

228, 231, 234
maldk 8, 10

mankind 9, 25, 63, 79-82, 97, 100,
114, 115, 118, 122, 136, 137,

142, 145, 148, 151, 193, 196,
203, 208

Mary 183
mahshar 95

Marrar b. Munquidh, al- 172
mathematics 2
mawjud 69
mawt 134

meaning 5, 10-19, 21, 29, 30,
35-37, 39,41,46, 49,51,53,
55, 57-60, 62-66, 68-70,
79-81, 85, 86, 88, 102-104,
106, 110, 112, 117, 125, 126,
129, 130, 132, 133, 139, 140,

143, 144, 146, 148-150, 154,
157, 159, 161, 165-167, 169,
173, 175, 176, 182, 183, 194,
196, 202,211,214,215,217,
218, 221,223, 224, 226, 227,

229, 232-235, 239-242, 245,
246, 248, 251, 252, 255,
259-261, 264, 268
phenomenon of 2

study of 2
structure of the 22
theories of 3
metaphorical system 157
metaphysical thinking 3, 68
Michael 120
Middle Ages 6
Middle East 252
Mighty Being 191
middle ummah 81, 97
MTkal 120
millah 249-251
modern, civilization 73
Turkish 34

MonophysitcM 111, 112

monotheism, temporary 23, 255,
256

monotheistic, ideas 70, 93, 196
Judeo-Christian circles 36
religion 1 1 8
monotheists 51, 117
moral 5, 10, 37, 40, 90, 122, 153,
197, 219, 229, 256, 262
ideas 37, 40
Mosaic law 165

Moses 30, 46, 113, 161, 174-176,
190, 194, 200
Mount Sinai 175

mu’min 22, 50, 51, 54, 71, 222,
264

Mu‘allaqah 92, 99, 168, 172, 213,
234, 245, 252, 260, 261, 269
Mu‘tazilah school of theology 268
mubashshir 148

Muhammad, prophet 7, 15, 18, 30,
53, 59, 82, 102, 103, 114,
118, 119, 124, 125, 137, 159,
165, 167, 179-181, 185, 187,
188, 190-193, 195, 197, 201,
205, 206, 231,236, 251,253,
264, 266

his prophetic consciousness
189

Muhammad b. Karra 72

Mukhabbal, al- 225

mukhadram 20, 21, 95, 98, 141

multi-strata structure 21, 22

multiple relationship 23, 27

munafiqun 80

munajat 176

mundsabah 180

mundhir 87, 115, 148, 244

Muqaddimah 181, 214

murji’ah 54

Murji’ites 54

MOsS b. Imran 1 13

Muslim, community 53, 79, 80, 82,

286

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

287

90, 159

ordinary orthodox 46
philologists 93

thinkers 54, 65, 75, 83, 153,
180

Muslims 6, 14, 43, 50, 51, 53, 59,
71, 80-82, 84, 101, 103, 118,
119, 129, 177, 197, 203, 207,
218, 228, 268
Musnad of Ibn Hanbai 1 7 1
mutual communication 78
mysticism 18, 30, 42, 43, 45, 47,
61

mystics 45-47
ndbhf’ 196, 215

Nabighah, al- 105, 111, 112, 115-
117, 125, 135, 141, 159, 204,
205, 248, 249, 253
nably 4, 12, 18, 47, 119, 195-197
najXy 175, 176
namus 113, 114
nashr 94, 95
nationalism 64
natural, inclination 58

monotheistic tendency 140
phenomena 15, 46, 143
predisposition 118
Necessary Being 68
neo-Platonic concept of Emanation
48

Nestorian church 1 12
network, of semantic associations
19

of words 43, 83
neurology 2

new conception of society 82
nidd 38
nihilism 92

pessimistic 131

Ninety-Nine Most Beautiful Names
44

Noah, Prophet 215
nobility 39-41
of lineage 39

Noldeke, Theodor 35, 125, 253
nomos 114

non- Arab peoples 201
non-Arabic languages 203
non-human language 164
non-Qur’anic, literature 106, 264
systems of concepts 28
non-verbal, dydt 143, 145
communication 168
symbols 145

Nu‘man b. al-Mundhir, al- 87, 115

obedience 78, 217, 218, 243-246,
263

objective entity 193, 194, 198
Old Testament 195, 255
omniscient 84
ontological, conception 17
difference 168
equality 209
order 9, 38

ontology 3, 28, 66, 68
dynamic 4, 17
Orientalists 93, 111, 222
original conceptual meaning 14
orthodoxy 47
Other World 87, 88

Paradise 120, 122, 196
partner 38

people of the Scripture 12, 80-82,
193, 203

Persian, culture in Islam 207
Empire 160
Emperor 161
language 207
religious conception 8
Shu ‘ubiyyah 207
vassal-state 1 12

words and concepts 205
Persians 88, 204, 207
personal, communion 46
experience 57

philosophy 2, 29, 30, 42, 43, 45,
47, 48, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66-69,
71, 97, 100, 131, 140, 157,
213

physiology 2
Plotinian ‘One’ 48
poetic inspiration 184
political theory 42
polytheists 5, 6, 51, 165
positivism 64-65
post-Qur’anic, ages 32, 75
periods 42
systems 42, 43, 47
practical intelligence 62
prayer 55, 158, 159, 208,211,212,
264

‘pre-linguistic’ concepts 27
pre-Islamic 5, 8, 20, 21, 29, 32,
36-40, 49, 55-58, 66, 70, 72,
85-90, 92, 94-96, 101-107,
111, 117, 118, 122, 126,
128-131, 135, 141, 159, 169,
173, 182-184, 196-198,202,
216, 220,225,229,234-238,
248, 249, 252, 256, 260
Arab mind 219
heathenism 86
history 39, 251
poet(s) 56, 85, 183
poetry 5, 21, 55, 57, 87, 89,
92, 109, 160, 166, 169,
172, 176, 182, 196, 202,
220, 223, 234-235, 241,
243, 245

times 4, 6, 14, 36, 39-40, 62,
8 1 * 102, 104. 130, 157,
171, 197, 216, 222, 223,
235, 254, 259

view of human life 133
vocabulary 14

pre-Qur’anic 32, 36, 37, 39, 160,
169

history 100

primitive shamanism 182
prophecy 187, 196, 215
prophet 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, 30, 47, 49,
52, 59, 60, 72, 79, 80, 82, 84,
101, 103, 113, 118, 119, 137,
145, 148, 152, 158, 159, 165,
185-187, 190-192, 194, 196-
198, 200, 201,205, 206, 208,
215, 218, 229-232, 234, 236,
253, 264, 266
prophethood 113
prophetic, career 103, 191
activity 196

Prophets 81, 97, 174, 177, 190,
195, 196, 216

psychology 2, 17, 46, 62, 76, 110,
116,223

of fear and taqwa 264
Punishment 50, 93, 148, 202, 227,
228, 259, 263, 265, 266

qada’ wa qadar 139, 151
Qadisiyyah 88
qalam 172, 173, 213
qalb 148, 149
qawl 54, 161, 167
qawmiyyah 64
qiblah , al - 160
qirids 18
qiydmah 13, 195
qudrah 226, 227, 237
qunut 217

Qur’an 1-6, 8, 10-12, 14-16, 18,
20-26, 28-33, 35-39, 41-52.
55, 57-60, 63, 64, 70, 71,
74-77, 79-84, 86, 89, 91-94,
98, 100-104, 106-109, 114,

288

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

289

117, 119, 122-124, 126-130,
132, 136-139, 142-146, 148,
150, 152-155, 157, 163-167,
173, 174, 176, 177, 179, 180,
185, 188, 189, 191, 193-201,
203, 205-209, 211-218, 220-
224, 226, 228, 232-240, 242,
245-249, 252, 254-258, 261,
262, 264-266, 268
and theology 60
authority of the 35, 42
inimitability of the 195
pointing out Muhammad ‘not
a poet’ 18

religious world-view of the
Qur’an 229

religious conception of 25
spirit of the 206
Qur’anic,

conception 47-48, 127, 139, 143-
144, 154, 164, 177, 189, 196,
229, 236, 239

concepts 28, 37, 45, 92, 98, 101,
127, 160, 178, 180, 189, 196,
199

concept of Divine Creation
48

concept of ‘Prophet’ 196
concept of resurrection 92
concept of Revelation 178,
180, 189, 199

concepts of social system 98
context 4, 11, 12, 14, 25, 30,
39, 55, 145, 154, 164, 266
description of God 72
divina commedia 127
eschatology 29
exegesis 52

image of the Hereafter 90
message 91
ontology 28
outlook 205

period 30, 61
piety 39

presentation 122

stage 14, 18, 50, 54, 83, 151

studies 1

system 28, 37-38, 49, 100,
130, 145, 235, 256
taqwa 259
teaching 207

thought 25, 28, 43, 74, 76,
80, 82,100-101,144,153,
262

usage 47, 101, 198
vision of the universe 3-5, 18
vocabulary 2, 13, 18, 20, 21,
24, 25, 33, 35, 36, 42, 43,
51, 74, 240
words 12, 45, 48
world 1, 3, 4, 13, 18, 37, 38,
75, 76, 82, 97, 136, 146,
157, 239

world-view 3-4, 13, 18, 37,
82, 97, 136, 146, 239
Quraysh 109, 119, 125, 231
qurban 6

ra y 60
Rabab 225

rabb 78, 109, 114, 121, 128, 216,
219
rahxm 44

rajaz 187, 197, 198
rashad 26, 154
rasul 18, 80, 81, 193, 214
ratiocinative philosophy 68
real entities 7

real 2, 6, 16, 18, 22, 27, 29, 35,
37, 40, 48, 49, 54, 55, 59, 60,
80, 85, 100, 115, 117, 118,
129, 136, 138, 143, 157, 167,
179, 180, 182, 184-188, 191,
197, 198, 202, 204,212,218,

220, 228, 238

reality 4, 6, 7, 15, 16, 27, 34, 47,
48, 56-58, 64, 76, 79, 80,
118, 135, 146, 150, 152, 170,
186, 193, 201, 229, 239, 240
reciprocal relationship 77
relation between God and man
76-78, 96, 100, 126, 130,
151,163,208,216, 240, 254,
257, 265

relational 16, 17, 36, 47, 53, 59,
62, 103, 106, 110, 150
meaning 12, 13, 16, 17, 29,
46, 55, 102-104

religion 15, 37, 38, 49, 51, 81, 87,
107, 108, 114, 118-120, 122,
124, 125, 146, 164, 206, 209,
211,218, 222, 223, 232, 236,
239, 240, 246-254, 256
religious, community 79, 203, 249
concepts of Judeo-Christian
origin 92-93
ideas 7, 93, 106, 122
meaning 10, 63
nature 105, 139, 256, 262
thought 235, 254
values 5, 6, 10, 155
religiousness 140
Resurrection 13, 91-95, 214, 261
Revelation 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 35,
42, 47, 57-59, 78, 80,81,97,
101, 103, 109, 113, 120, 142,
143, 145, 158, 163-169, 172,
.178-181, 187, 189, 190,

192-201, 203, 206-208, 211,
213, 228, 232
fact of 1 80
Reward 90
rhetoric 30, 242
Roman world 61
root mofyiing of din 241, 242
nlh (tl arnht, id- 192

sa'ah 14, 29, 30, 84, 138
Sa‘d b. Abl Waqqas 88
Sabians 80

sabfl 25, 41, 154, 157
Sacred Book 30, 35, 61, 75, 207
saj t 187, 188, 197-199
saj '-style 198

Salamah b. al-Khurshub 257
salat 55, 78, 158-160
Sallk, al- 135
Salim b. Wabisah 226
Salmah al-Ju‘fi 95
Sassanian culture 110
Saussurian terminology 164, 179
sawm 55

Scripture 3, 12, 28, 39, 80-82, 1 14,
119, 158, 193, 203, 206
of Islam 2
sein 68

self-sufficiency 78, 221, 236, 238,
239

semantic, development 14, 33, 217
element 11, 102, 230, 240,
241

elements 12, 38, 103, 223
field 10, 12, 14, 15, 20, 22,
24-28, 36-38, 49, 55, 70,
75,91,96, 130, 134, 146,
149, 150, 153, 155-157,
161, 242, 257
field of social system 83
field of ‘society’ 79
problem 103
methodology 1
relationship 264
structure 21, 39, 43, 46, 55,
59, 100, 145, 148, 153,
169, 170, 172, 197, 218,
233

structure of the word kdfir 53
‘surfaces’ 36

transformation 10, 14, 15,47

290

God and Man in the Qur’an

Index

291

69, 198, 258
value 21

semantical 2, 25, 35, 38, 51, 75,
83, 96, 98, 101, 170, 178,
179, 196

analysis 16-17, 54, 74, 83,
145, 169, 252

semanticist3, 5, 18, 28, 47, 48, 61,
75

semantics 11, 13, 28-30, 60, 69,
97, 145

historical 32, 33, 35, 48
modem 7, 54, 71
of Islamic theology 48
of the Qur’an 1-3, 21, 30,
of vocabulary of Islamic Law
83

science of 3
static 33

semi-personal Being 136
Semites 181
Semitic 164

antiquity 196
mode of thinking 246
world 254

servant 9, 78, 79, 126, 130, 216,
217, 221,237, 238, 240, 246,
247, 251, 253

shd'ir 18, 182, 184-186, 189
shabdb 87

Shaddakh b. Ya‘mar 94
shafd'ah 6
ShafiT, al- 60, 161
shag* 187

shahadah 83-86, 98, 158

shakara 14-16

Shanfara, al- 62

shank 38

shayatln , al- 192

Shay bah 119

Shaytdn 177, 185

shvkr 23, 24, 78, 149, 255-258

shuraka' 104
shuyu ‘iyyah 64
sifdt 44, 70

signs 46, 53, 63, 142, 143, 146,
158, 168, 170, 173, 179, 185,
199, 208, 232, 255
sihr 97, 122, 126, 212
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell 217,252
so-called gods 7, 8
social, entities 27
unity 79

sociology 2, 199
spiritual, group movement 122
religion 87, 122, 257
static, surface of words 34
system of words 34
structural genius 28
sub-system 20, 22
of concepts 23
Sufis 119
sujud 159
sultan 244

supernatural, beings 7, 8, 38, 182
force 182
order 130, 167
Supreme Judge 29
symbolic, logic 2

meaning 45, 157, 173
symbols 144, 145, 148, 232
synchronic 32
Syria 73
Syriac 119, 121
Syrian, East 112

system 4-8, 10-17, 19-28, 34-39,
41-45, 47-49, 51, 53, 55,
59-62, 64, 69-71, 75, 76, 82,
83,90,91, 96,98, 100, 104,
109, 130, 131, 136-138, 144-
146, 149-153, 157, 168, 179,
198, 199, 235, 248, 249, 251,
256

of concepts 10-11, 20, 23, 43,

61, 95, 103
of relations 4
sign- 168

systematic ontology 3

Taabbata Sharran 132, 220

ta'ah 217, 240, 243, 244

talim 180

Tabari, al- 201, 269

tabligh 193

tabshlr 148

Tafslr al-Jalalayn 263

tahannuth 159

tahrif 194

TS’if 118, 122

takdhib 23, 24, 145, 146, 148-151,
153

tanzil 12, 78, 146, 165, 166, 214
taqwd 10, 39-41, 78, 126, 149,
259, 264, 265
Tarafah 56, 141, 182, 268
tasdiq 23, 24, 72, 145, 146,
148-151, 153, 211
Tawrat 114
Taymd ' 93, 112
tazakkf 70

telejun (telephone) 64
thankfulness 55

theocentric 7, 8, 24, 76, 100, 120
theological, mystery 166
terminology 43
vocabulary 43, 45
theology 14, 30, 31, 42-45, 47, 48,
51, 54, 55, 59-61, 70, 139,
151, 268

Throne 30, 120, 126, 208
TibrTzT, al- 141, 260
Tirmidhl, al- 52, 71
to vinai 6K
T6r& 1 14

Torah 114, 195, 206
tribal society 204, 206

Thaqlf, tribe of 118
Tamlm, tribe of 110
truth 16, 24, 80, 81, 93, 104, 107.
118, 120, 123; 144, 145, 150.
157, 159, 164, 167, 186, 188,
191, 192, 232, 233, 243, 251
tughyan 129, 221, 233

Uhud 119

Ullman, Stephen 29
‘Umar b. AbT RabTah 87
Umayyah b. AbT al-Salt 106, 118,
121, 122, 259

ummah 79-82, 97, 134, 231, 251
ummah muslimah 19
umml 8 1

ummiyyun 80, 81
ungratefulness 255-256
unification, principle 23
Universal Intellect 64
universe 7, 144, 192, 193, 200, 221
vision of the 3-5, 18, 120
unseen 77, 83, 84, 187, 196, 198,
264

spirits 182
unthankfulness 78
UsEmah b. al-Harith 140
‘Utbah 119

values 5-7, 10, 11, 90, 155, 198
204, 220

veil 46, 48, 120, 189, 190, 232
verbal communication 1 68, 1 80
181, 189-191, 208
vocabulary, AbbSsid 36

of Islamic jurisprudence 42
of Islamic mysticism 42
of Islamic theology 42-43
of pre-Islam 21
of the Qur’an 4, 22, 23, 36
252

prc-Qur’unie 36

292

God and Man in the Qur’an

post-Qur’anic 36

wa'id 148, 265-269
wad'iyyah 64, 65
Wadi al-Qura 112
wahid 44

wahy 1, 4, 9, 12, 14, 17-19, 22, 23,
25-27, 29, 32-34, 36, 39-45,
47, 48, 50, 53, 54, 62-65,
68-70, 72, 74, 78, 79, 83-86,
90, 92, 93, 96, 97, 102-106,
110, 115-118, 120, 123, 129,
134, 140-143, 148-152, 154-
158, 161, 163-166, 168-175,
177-179, 181, 184, 188-190,
194, 195, 197, 198, 202, 203,
207-209, 212, 213, 219, 220,
227, 230, 232-235, 237, 239,
240, 245, 248, 254-256, 258,
262, 265

Wa'Tdiyyahsal- 268
w&jib al-wujud 68
Waraqahb. Nawfal 113, 114, 125
waswasah 177, 178
Watt, Montgomery 71
Way 154, 156, 157
nature of the 25

Weltanschauung 3, 16, 32, 36, 61,
70, 72, 74-76, 89, 94, 96,
100, 103, 106, 121, 129,

130, 138, 149, 150, 157
of the Arabs 8
of Umayyah 122
philosophical 27, 127, 144

semantic — of the Qur’an 28
Wensinck, A.J., 53, 72
werden 68

West 65, 71, 72, 93, 253
Western, writers 222
scholars 102, 196
wisdom 81, 97, 143, 227, 230, 231
word, -magic 182, 197
-meanings 5, 15, 16
world, of reality 16
-outlook 36

world-view 1, 3, 4, 13, 18, 21, 27,
31,37,61,64, 82, 83,90, 92,
97, 122, 136, 146, 229, 239,
242

of Jahiliyyah 77

Worship 6-9, 78, 108, 109, 118,
119, 121, 124, 158-161,210,
211, 246, 251, 263
wujud 68, 69

Yaqut’s 253
Yathrib 93, 1 12
yawm 13, 92, 240, 242
Yemen 119, 157, 187

Zakariyya 173, 174
zakat 55
zann 56-58, 72
Zoroastrians 80

Zuhayr b. Abl Sulma 92-94, 243,
252, 259, 261, 269
zulm 137, 228, 229, 236